


To Have and to Hold

by KouriArashi



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Celebrities, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Past Sexual Assault, Slow Build, accidentally married, which apparently doesn't have its own tag yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-07-13 05:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16011509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KouriArashi/pseuds/KouriArashi
Summary: “Yes, well, you see . . .” Deucalion cleared his throat again. “In an effort for authenticity, the writer used an actual binding ceremony in the script. The casting director, wanting to make sure it was pronounced correctly, found an actual shaman to perform it. He did so.”“You – you mean – are you saying that Derek and I are actually married?” Stiles managed to squeeze out of his rapidly closing throat.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is really all the fault of Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder for being accidentally married in Dracula and giving me this idea. ^_^
> 
> First note: this is an AU where magic is known, werewolves are just people, nobody makes a big deal out of it.
> 
> Second note: I know almost nothing about a) how celebrities live or b) how movies are made, so please forgive me if I get stuff wrong.
> 
> Third note: this fic does have a trigger warning for past sexual assault and discussions of the #metoo movement, because Kate Argent is a terrible person in every world.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

When Stiles got word that not only had he been cast in his first lead role, but it was opposite _Derek Hale_ , he shouted so loudly into his phone that his agent Lydia complained for weeks about her ringing ears. He shouted all the way to the kitchen, where it took his father three full minutes to calm him down enough for him to finally tell him the news.

Derek Hale was _amazing_ , okay? He was the reason Stiles had become an actor. He had vivid memories of sitting in front of the television after his mother’s death, binge-watching the terrible soap opera that Derek had been on at the time. He had graduated from that to a sitcom, and from that to a science-fiction series, and had started getting his first big movie roles when he was sixteen.

When Stiles was sixteen, he had gone to the theater with friends, and come out in love with the man on the screen. Derek had taken what could have otherwise been a boring teen comedy cutie and infused him with so much pathos that it was palpable in the movie theater. His performance was so good that it earned him a Golden Globe nomination, even though the movie itself was mediocre.

It was at that moment, leaving the theater, that Stiles had decided to become an actor. Actors could make people _feel things_. He wanted to be able to do that, too.

So he started making videos to put on YouTube and taking acting classes. His father seemed a little bit skeptical that his hyperactive son would be able to focus on it well enough (“this won’t be like your trumpet lessons, right? Or your magic lessons? Or your – ”), but the classes actually improved his concentration. He auditioned for a small role in a movie based off a YA book the next year, and landed it, surprising himself more than anyone else.

Now there he was, twenty-three years old, and not only had he been cast as one of two main roles in the post-apocalyptic action movie of his dreams, it was alongside _Derek Hale_.

“Oh my God,” he said, when he had finally stopped hyperventilating. “He’s going to hate me. He’s so much more talented than I am. I mean. Have you _seen_ him? Did you see him in the _Inception_ sequel? Or, or that scene in the new Mission Impossible movie where he was trapped underwater and really, genuinely thought he was going to die? Or the – ”

“Son,” Noah said, grasping Stiles’ shoulders, “I have seen literally every moment of filmcraft wrought by Derek Hale, thanks to you. And I have also seen every moment wrought by _you_ , and read the reviews of your last role. Something about bringing a depth and level of emotion into your character that set you apart from other actors?”

“Well, yeah, but Derek Hale was doing that when he was eleven years old,” Stiles said, but his nerves had dialed down a bit. His father was right. He _was_ good at what he did. He just had to remember that and try to have some confidence, and he’d be fine. Plus, the script looks amazing. The movie took place in a world without magic – or so it appeared at the beginning. As the movie went on, it was revealed that the religious authoritarians had sucked the magic out of the world and were using it to protect their own safe havens. Stiles had to admit he was somewhat fascinated by the idea of a world without any magic at all, even though his own magical ability was – well, sketchy at best, although that was mainly because he didn’t have the focus for it.

It was several months before he actually met Derek, because although his role was one of the last to be cast, there was still plenty for the producers and the crew to do before filming actually started. In the meantime, he had plenty of training of his own to do – he didn’t exactly need to be buff as his character was described as ‘wiry but strong’, but he did need to put on some muscle. When they actually met, it was on location, in the Nevada desert. The sun was intense, but it was winter, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The crew had a magic user who had rigged up little patches of shade for them to stand in if it got too hot.

He had thought about – practically obsessed over – what he should say to Derek when they met. Should he tell Derek he was a fan? Would that make things weird? He was an actor, too, should he not have other movie stars he looked up to?

“Look,” Lydia said, tossing her hair as he gnawed on the question on the day before filming started, “if Mark Ruffalo can get moogly-eyed over Paul Rudd on the red carpet, I think you’re allowed to greet Derek Hale with ‘I’m a big fan, I really loved you in’ . . . whatever his favorite role of yours is. It’s fine to say it, just don’t make a big deal out of it.”

Stiles had to take several deep breaths before agreeing that this seemed like sound advice. So when he stepped into the Nevada desert and spotted Derek Hale sitting by his trailer, waiting for makeup to be ready for him, he walked over while reminding himself to be confident. “Hey, Derek – is it okay if I call you Derek? – I wanted to stop over and introduce myself. You can call me Stiles, nobody bothers with my real name.”

Derek stood up and shook his outstretched hand, his face set in an expression that was almost completely blank of expression. All he said in response was, “Okay.”

So hyped up that he barely noticed the lack of reaction, Stiles continued, “Sorry, I have to have just a little bit of a fanboy moment here. I wanted to let you know that I really loved you in _The Last Judgment_.”

He had dithered for almost an hour about which movie to use as an example. Nothing _too_ obscure, because he didn’t want to look like a stalker. But nothing too mainstream, because he didn’t want to look like he had just pulled Derek up on the IMDB and picked a movie to watch. Derek’s role in _The Last Judgment_ , a horror movie about the Anti-Christ, had barely been ten minutes long, but God, they had been ten _amazing_ minutes.

Stiles felt a flood of relief when he saw a tiny bit of a smile crack Derek’s stoic exterior. “Thanks,” he said. “I think that one is underrated, personally.”

“Oh my God, I loved that movie,” Stiles said. “I’m generally not a big horror fan because they can have so much gore, but as a suspense thriller, that one was just,” he makes a ‘chef’s kiss’ gesture with one hand. “I haven’t done anywhere near as much action stuff as you, so, if I’m not performing up to snuff at any point, please tell me. Sugarcoat _nothing_.”

“Okay,” Derek said. He was quiet for a brief moment before he said, “You were in that latest Bruce Willis movie though, weren’t you?”

“Hah, yeah, but I was just the tech geek,” Stiles said, beaming. Derek had heard of him, or at least had looked him up after finding out who his costar was going to be. “Didn’t do any action work of my own.”

“You haven’t been in much,” Derek said with a faint frown.

Stiles felt a twist of nervousness in his stomach, and as usual, took refuge in talking way too much. “Oh, yeah, this is actually only my fourth role in an actual film, and I hardly did any TV work, not even commercials or anything. I didn’t get into acting until I was sixteen, so I’m way behind you in terms of actual hours spent on film. I know it’s a big risk casting a relative unknown in as big a role as this, but I guess they probably have your name for the box office pull, so hopefully they don’t need mine? I heard they auditioned something like two hundred people and I got called to audition _three times_ , so in the end I must have done something that they thought was worthwhile – ”

He might have kept talking for several more hours in that vein, but someone calls out, “Hale, makeup is ready for you!”

Without ceremony, Derek said, “See you on set,” to Stiles before heading towards the makeup trailer.

Stiles finally managed to stop his monologue, although only in time to shout after him, “Looking forward to working with you!”

Derek didn’t respond, but that was okay. Stiles took several more deep breaths and said to himself, “Yeah, okay, that went well, that went great.”

An hour later, it was his turn with makeup, and half an hour after that, he was on set opposite Derek for the first time. They were shooting a scene from the middle of the movie, the one right after he and Stiles’ characters had met for the first time and joined forces in a precarious situation without even knowing each other’s names.

In the movie, Stiles’ character was the one who was battle-hardened and plagued by loss, while Derek’s character was the relative innocent who had just been ejected from one of the safe havens that harbored the rich and privileged. He spent the first half hour of the movie learning what he had to do to survive, before meeting Stiles’ character. Stiles initially had no time for him, but gradually warmed up to him over the course of the movie, until they finally worked together to fight their way into the safe haven and steal the artifact that they had been using to drain the area of its magic.

Lydia had remarked tartly that it was going to be a miracle if Stiles could act like he had no time for Derek Hale, but Stiles was a devotee to his craft and he was sure he could pull it off.

That was what he thought until Derek looked up at him, instantly transitioning from aloof actor into wounded bunny rabbit. “Thanks. I . . . I never would have survived if you hadn’t turned up.”

 Stiles was so awestruck that it took him a moment to remember his line. Fortunately, he was able to roughly deliver, “Yeah, whatever,” before turning to stalk away.

“Cut!” Deucalion, the director, shouted. He frowned over at them before saying, “Stilinski, what was that?”

“Oh, uh,” Stiles stammered, feeling his face flush with embarrassment. “I just thought a bit of hesitation would hint at the, the softness that Solomon has under his skin, you know? Like, he’s a complete asshole in this scene, but we still want the audience to know he’s not a heartless SOB.”

Deucalion mulled that over for a minute, then said, “Let’s shoot it without and I’ll see which I like better.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Stiles said. They shot it again, this time without. Then they shot it a third time, with him hesitating but for a smaller amount of time, and then a fourth time with him hesitating a little bit longer, and then eighteen more times, all on slight variations. It was maddening, but Stiles understood why. This first moment between the two characters was absolutely crucial. It needed to be perfect.

“Cut!” Deucalion shouted again. “That’s the one. Nice work, both of you. Okay, we’re going to start rolling again at Hale’s next line.”

They got back in place, and Derek shouted, “Wait!” at Stiles’ retreating back, and they filmed the next bit of the scene. And the next, and the next, doing the scene over and over again until everything was as perfect as they could make it. The sun was setting by the time they were done, and Stiles was exhausted. He had always heard that the really good directors would spend an entire day on ten minutes of footage, but he had never experienced it before.

Even so, he was absolutely dying to spend more time in Derek Hale’s glorious presence. He couldn’t get over what a master of the craft Derek was. His performance was absolutely consistent, always spot-on. He could deliver the same line a hundred times and make it convincing every single time. Still, Stiles didn’t think he had embarrassed himself. Deucalion had been asking Derek to change his performance almost as often as Stiles, to see how he liked different deliveries of different lines.

“You wanna go grab a drink?” Stiles asked, practically bursting out of his own skin with excitement.

Derek looked around the Nevada desert. “Where?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, good point. I mean. You could come over to my trailer for a bit? Hang out? Or I could hang at yours? I’m sure your trailer is nicer than mine. Though mine’s not bad! I brought my xBox. I guess I don’t really have any of the sort of liquor werewolves really like, but I have plenty of soda and Red Bull – ”

Derek frowned at him slightly, then shook his head and said, “No, thanks. I’m pretty beat.”

“Right, of course. Good night! Rest up! See you tomorrow!” Stiles forced himself to stop talking before jogging over to his trailer (he had a trailer!) to call his dad and tell him about how everything had gone.

It wasn’t all roses, of course. There were rough days where Deucalion didn’t seem to like _anything_ he did and he was sure he was going to be fired. There were days when it was pouring rain, days when various coworkers were in bad moods, days when he had a sore throat from so much talking, days when rigorous stuntwork left him sore and groaning. There was a day when he was allergic to a new type of makeup they used and spent the next several hours itching and puffy. There was a day when costume messed up and gave him a silver bracelet which made Derek’s hackles stand up every time Stiles came near him, and it took them two hours to figure out why. There were days that just flat out sucked. But he reminded himself every night that he was grateful to have gotten the role.

Once every week or so, he tried inviting Derek out for a drink, or to hang out, and Derek always responded with the same, “Thanks, but no,” with some sort of excuse. Stiles would think that Derek just hated him, but honestly, he never saw Derek interact with _anyone_ on set. Every other member of the cast and crew who tried to approach him got the same politely professional brush-off. In fact, Stiles thought that the two minute conversation about movies they’d had at the beginning of filming was the most conversation he’d seen Derek have with anyone.

The only emotion he ever saw Derek show when he wasn’t on camera was annoyance. He got annoyed at other cast members if they weren’t being professional, at crew members if they hadn’t done what he asked, even at Deucalion sometimes. There was an exchange where Deucalion said, “I’m not here to be your friend,” and Derek had retorted, “Oh, someone told you what a friend is?” which Stiles sort of wanted to have tattooed on his chest. Derek could speak entire _volumes_ with a roll of his eyes or the quirk of an eyebrow. He managed to be just as expressive off set as on it when it came to being five hundred percent done with other people.

Derek still had several days left of filming when Stiles filmed his last scene. He managed to say, “Hey, so, call me some time, don’t be a stranger!”

Derek gave him a funny look and said, “You know I’ll see you for the press tour, right?”

“Oh my _God_ I get to go on a press tour!” Stiles burst out, practically hugging himself with glee. “Holy shit this is so exciting and I know you’ve done them dozens of times but holy shit I’m gonna be on a press tour with Derek Hale I am gonna cry – ”

Derek shook his head a little and said, “Calm down before you hurt yourself,” before heading back onto set.

“I will _never_ be calm!” Stiles shouted after him, then put his face in his hands and mumbled, “Why did I say that? I mean, it’s true, but why?”

He got on the plane and went home and proceeded to tell his father absolutely everything that had happened on set, despite having e-mailed and Skyped with him frequently. He told his father so much about it that he was fairly sure his father zoned out halfway through the conversation.

“This movie is gonna be so good, though,” he said, to literally anybody who would listen. “The script was amazing and Deucalion was a super hard-ass but also amazing and Derek was – ”

“Amazing?” Lydia supplied, not looking up from the script she was reading.

A few months later, he saw Derek again for the press tour. He’d had no idea what to wear and been intensely glad that there was a wardrobe person there who gave him clothes to change into. He was even more glad that he saw this person before he saw Derek, who looked fantastic as usual. “Hey, good to see you again!” he said, trying not to gush.

“Yeah,” Derek replied, and okay, it wasn’t the most _scintillating_ response, but at least it was a _positive_ response.

The interviews were a weird experience. Stiles had already realized that a lot of Derek’s public persona was just a show, but to watch him turn on the charm and charisma like he had flipped a switch was just bizarre. He smiled at the interviewer like he was truly happy to be there, flirted a little if it was a woman of about his age, and generally looked into the camera like he knew he was melting the heart of anyone who watched the interview.

They answered tons of questions about their acting methods, about the script, about the setting. Stiles took every opportunity to mention how lucky he was and how amazing it had been to work alongside Derek and Deucalion and how both of them had taught him so much. Derek gave him a sidelong glance once or twice, as if wondering when this had happened, but didn’t say anything about it.

Towards the end of the day, a young woman working for TMZ started off the interview by saying brightly, “So, Derek! It looks like Kate Argent has snagged the lead in the Top Gun reboot. How do you feel about that?”

Stiles was mystified by this question. He knew who Kate Argent was, and that she had been on the same sitcom as Derek, but that was all. He glanced over at Derek and saw that the charming smile had fallen off his face. He said, in the same professionally civil tone that he often used on set, “I feel like it has nothing to do with the movie that Stiles and I are here to promote.”

“Okay, but you know that your fans are going to want to hear your opinion on this! A lot of people expected that she would be blacklisted after what happened, but to have her land this huge role – ”

Derek interrupted. “Do you have a question about the movie?”

“I have lots of questions about the movie, but before that I just want to know your opinion on Kate – ”

Derek stood up. “This interview is over. Thank you for your time.” He turned and walked off the set without another word. Stiles gaped after him, then looked at the interviewer, half expecting that she would start grilling him for his opinions. She looked just as startled as he was, and that gave Stiles the opportunity to scramble off his seat and follow Derek. He had no idea what was going on, but was very sure that he sided with Derek on whatever the issue was.

He found Derek already on his phone. “Hey, Boyd. I just wanted to let you know that I walked out of the TMZ interview because she wouldn’t stop asking me about Kate. They might release the clip or not, I don’t know. Okay. Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks.”

When Derek hung up, Stiles said, “Uh, everything okay?”

“Yeah. I just wanted to call my agent real quick and warn him that there might be some blowback.” Derek frowned slightly and said, “I hope it doesn’t mess anything up for you.”

Stiles felt a warm glow in his chest and stomach. “Nah, I’ll be all right. She probably didn’t even know I was there.”

At that, Derek gave a snort. “Probably not. I’m going to run and get a water before the next interview.”

“Okay,” Stiles said, still a little bewildered.

He had thought he knew everything about Derek Hale, but he was obviously missing something. Derek lived as private a life as possible for a celebrity, but there was plenty about him on the internet. Stiles knew he had grown up in northern California as part of a huge werewolf pack, that he was one of five children, that he had been acting since he was four years old. He knew that Derek’s parents and two of his siblings had died in a fire when Derek was eighteen – that had been big news at the time. He knew every scrap of detail about Derek’s acting career and education. So what was he missing, and how the hell had he missed it?

Once he got home for the day, he immediately set to the internet. It quickly became obvious how he had missed it – it was something that had happened during the three months of intense training he had undergone before the film. He hadn’t been on the internet much, being too tired at the end of the day to do more than channel surf before going to bed.

Two months before they had started filming, Derek had released a statement on his official blog to join the #metoo movement. It was about how Kate Argent had sexually harassed and assaulted him on the set of the sitcom they were on together.

‘I met Kate Argent when I was fifteen. She showered me with compliments and made me feel wanted, respected, in a way that I hadn’t been before. She told me what an amazing actor I was, and how she knew I would be famous one day. It was great at first. But then things changed. She would always be near me, would ask me to spend time with her when we weren’t filming, would make sexual comments towards me. It made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t know how to say no. She was older, more established, more talented (or so I thought at the time).

When she started inviting me to her dressing room, I said no at first. But then she started rumors around set that I was unprofessional, that I had made comments about other actors or crew members. I asked her why she was doing it and she said, ‘you know why’. Then she invited me to her dressing room again. This time, I said yes.

My parents noticed a change in me, noticed that I had started having a lot of anxiety, especially before shooting days. They kept asking me what was wrong and I kept telling them it was just stress. My mother asked me more than once if I wanted to quit acting, that they wouldn’t pressure me into it if I didn’t want it. I think they were always afraid of what happened to child stars if their parents pressured them too much.

I never told them what was going on. A few months later, I got cast in one of my first major movie roles, and left the show. They were happy that I was feeling better, and they never made me talk about it.

It’s taken me years to realize that what happened wasn’t my fault. That she was in a position of power over me, which she abused. She threatened to ruin my career doing what I loved if I didn’t do as I was told. And what the Me Too Movement has made me realize is that I probably wasn’t her only victim. So I hope that by speaking out, I can make a difference to any other actors, any other people, who have been in similar positions, whether Kate Argent was the perpetrator or not. I hope I can convince you that whatever happened to you, it wasn’t your fault. It doesn’t matter if she told you that you wanted it. You didn’t ask for it. Whoever you are, I hope this helps you find peace.’

Stiles snuffled a little as he finished reading. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t known this, and he realized now why Derek had been so standoffish towards people on set. In a way, though, he was glad he hadn’t known. If he had, it would have been too easy to make things awkward by bringing it up. Instead, he had treated Derek like any other actor – one he respected, even revered, but not as a victim or a spokesperson for a movement.

Now that he did know, he was even _more_ furious about what the interviewer had said. A few moments later, it occurred to him that the worst part was that yes, Kate Argent sure as hell had bagged that amazing role less than a year after Derek had spoken out against her. Reading an article on the controversy over her casting just made him more pissed. Most of the opinions seemed to boil down to the fact that since Derek had been a fifteen year old boy being hit on by a hot woman, it wasn’t like he had actually been assaulted. Several people seemed to think that was because he was a werewolf, nobody could have forced him to do anything he didn’t want to do. He had probably enjoyed it, and now was just trying to get attention.

“Like Derek Hale needs attention!” Stiles shouted at his computer. “You absolute miserable wankstains!”

He had to take several deep breaths, glad he hadn’t made a big deal out of it when the interviewer had brought it up. He wondered if he should bring it up, maybe tell Derek he had read the post, but decided against it. Since he hadn’t said anything so far, talking about it now would be weird. Derek definitely didn’t want to talk about it, and Stiles wasn’t going to make him.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your lovely comments! <3

 

It was Stiles’ first premiere and he was practically going out of his mind with excitement as the car stopped on the red carpet. There was a _red carpet_. He was going to die on it from sheer euphoric happiness. People were waving at him from the sidelines, reporters who were probably waiting for Derek or Deucalion but didn’t exactly look disappointed to see him. He answered a few questions, signed a few autographs.

Derek showed up about ten minutes later, looking absolutely phenomenal in his tuxedo, which had a silvery-gray jacket. His hair was perfectly coiffed and he had just the right amount of stubble. Stiles wanted to lick it, but somehow managed to refrain. Derek was immediately swarmed, of course, but Stiles was surprised to find himself pulled in as well as many of the photographers wanted pictures of them together.

They were politely answering a reporter’s questions when a voice said, “Well, if it isn’t Derek Hale!” and Stiles turned to see Kate Argent herself, wearing a sinfully low-cut and slinky black dress. Derek froze beside him, his face going completely blank. “I’m so glad that I ran into you! It’s been so long, hasn’t it?”

“Kate,” Derek said, his voice carefully, painfully neutral, “what are you doing here?”

“It’s a big premiere! Anyone who’s anyone is here,” Kate said, and Stiles could just see the subtle threat in her voice, the reminder that she was a big name from an established Hollywood family, that she could still make trouble for him even though they no longer worked together.

Derek obviously didn’t know how to react, his face set like stone and his jaw tight. Stiles felt hyper aware of the cameras, of the knowledge that however Derek responded, it would be filmed and broadcast in dozens of places, and everyone on the internet would pick apart his reaction.

Without thinking, Stiles half-shouldered Derek aside and stuck his hand out. “Kate Argent, oh my God, it is such an amazing honor to meet you!” he gushed, and she smirked a little as she took his outstretched hand. He pumped it up and down and continued, “I was such a big fan of your work on that show, what was it called, Sex Predators Are Us?”

Kate’s smirk froze on her face, and Derek made a choked noise. Stiles didn’t let that deter him, still shaking her hand enthusiastically and continuing, “I would love to sit down and chat with you about how amazing it is that you snagged the role in the Top Gun reboot! I feel like I could really use your advice on how to get those great parts, because you certainly didn’t get cast because of your _talent_ , and if there are people I should be slipping bribes to, I’d love to know who – ”

Kate snatched her hand back and huffed away, and Derek practically grabbed Stiles by the elbow and towed him inside. Stiles was still grinning despite everything, and allowed Derek to brush everyone else aside and head towards their seats. It wasn’t until they were sitting down that Derek quietly murmured, “Thanks.”

“Hey, no problem, big guy,” Stiles said, marveling at the interior of the theater.

He was beyond excited to see the movie, and it was even better than he imagined. He stared at it with rapt attention, amazed at his own acting. “I had no idea I was this good!” he muttered to Derek after a particularly emotional scene, and Derek snorted. He was on the moon afterwards, and even departing from Derek’s side for what he supposed would be the last time didn’t make a dent in his enthusiasm.

Okay, the text messages from Lydia _did_ make a bit of a dent. The first just said ‘call me as soon as you’ve left the premiere’ and then the second said, ‘well, you’re going viral, I hope you’re happy’. The third, which was the one which really made him wince was, ‘And she’s already threatening a lawsuit! Great job, Stiles.’

Once he was in the car, he called her. “So, uh, I can explain – ”

“Oh, you don’t need to explain,” she said in her usual tart tone. “You let your mouth get the better of you, as usual.”

“Can she really sue?” Stiles asked. “I mean, I didn’t actually call her a sexual predator, I just, uh, said she had played one on TV.”

“And implied she bribed her way into the part she just got.”

“Yeah, that too.”

“That’s defamation of character, Stiles.”

“Yep,” Stiles agreed.

Lydia sighed. “Just . . . lay low for a few days, okay? Let me handle the fallout. _Don’t_ talk to any reporters. Don’t talk to anybody! Magic your damn mouth shut, put in an IV for nutrition, and play video games until I call you.”

Stiles opened his mouth to reply, but Lydia had already hung up. He made a face at his phone and then checked his Twitter page. He was absolutely _flooded_ with mentions, and couldn’t help but smirk at all the people going absolutely insane over his ‘savage clapback’, as Buzzfeed put it. He forced himself to put his phone away without replying to anything.

When he woke up the next morning, he had a text from an unknown number which made his heart jump into his mouth because the first few words were, “Hey, it’s Derek.” After that preamble, he continued, “I saw that Kate is threatening a lawsuit.”

Forcing himself not to text something ridiculous like ‘Hi Derek I love you’, he responded instead with, “Yeah, she’s real mad, LOL.” He didn’t want to make it look like he regretted what he said or was upset about it.

After what felt like a small eternity, Derek replied with, “Let me know if you need help with the legal costs.”

“Wow, thank you so much,” Stiles replied. “My agent is handling it right now. I’m not allowed to talk to anybody.”

“I bet,” Derek replied, and Stiles could tell he was amused even from that brief response. A minute later, he added, “She probably won’t sue, though. What you said was pretty vague, more of an implication than a direct statement. And unless she loses the role because of it, which she won’t, she wouldn’t be able to prove harm. Just don’t back down – if you do, she’ll go for the throat.”

“Got it,” Stiles replied. “So tell her to bring it?”

“Yeah. She’s not used to people who don’t let her have her way.”

Stiles copied the texts and then forwarded them to Lydia. She didn’t reply, but when he checked the news later that night, he saw that she had issued a statement which read, “We will not issue any commentary on pending litigation other than to say that if Ms. Argent would like to pursue a suit, we will be happy to meet her in a court of law.”

“Nice,” Stiles says to his phone, grinning before he went to let his father know that he might be the subject of a lawsuit. His father just pinched the bridge of his nose and asked the ceiling why he wasn’t surprised.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

 _South of Haven_ was a smashing success, achieving huge profits and critical acclaim. It had ninety-seven percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Reviews from both audience and critics alike gushed over Derek and Stiles’ chemistry together, how they made the characters so incredibly real and brought such depth to them.

For the first time in his life, Stiles was able to choose what projects he wanted to audition for with more care, rather than auditioning for any role he qualified for. He even ended up with two offers on the table at the same time, and got a major role in a spy thriller.

He didn’t think it was possible to be happier with the way his life was going until Lydia called him two weeks before he wrapped on his current project. “Okay, so, I have some news,” she said, in a reserved tone. “I want you to sit down.”

“Oh my God, Lyds,” Stiles said, grabbing for a chair. “What, what is it, what’s happening? Did Kate sue us after all? Am I going to jail? Did somebody – ”

“No, it’s good news,” Lydia said. “I just want you to be calm and not scream in my ear.”

“No promises,” Stiles replied.

Lydia sighed, but then said, “Paramount has greenlit two sequels to _South of Haven_.”

Stiles screamed in her ear. When he calmed down a moment later, he added, “Uh, they do want me to be in them, right? I’m assuming you wouldn’t have bothered telling me if they didn’t want me – ”

“Yes, Stiles, they are going to keep both main characters, and both you and Derek have been invited to the project. I can e-mail over the contract for you to read and sign. I looked it all over already and it looks good.”

“This is literally the best day of my life, oh my God, I’m gonna have an aneurysm – yes, e-mail me the contract, am I allowed to talk about it yet? Can I call my dad? Please tell me I can call my dad – ”

“Yes, you can call your dad, but don’t say anything to anyone else. Okay?”

“Okay!” Stiles hung up without waiting for her to say anything else and immediately called his dad to let him know. His father gave him the usual, ‘I’m proud of you, I always knew you could do it’ speech, which Stiles always loved to hear.

The contract looked good, so he signed it and sent it back to Lydia. A few days later, she e-mailed to let him know that the news was being announced so he could tell other people about it, ‘if you know any other people’. Stiles didn’t bother with a clever retort, instead texting Derek to say, “I am stoked about the sequels, you?”

He kept his fingers crossed for the next four hours while waiting for Derek to reply, figuring he was probably busy. He had no idea what sort of reply he might get, since he still thought that Derek might find him pretty annoying sometimes. What he got was . . . well, fair. Derek replied with, “I’m withholding judgment – and my signature – until I see the script.”

Stiles wondered if he should have thought of that. Well, it was too late now. He texted back with, “Fair enough! We don’t want to end up in _Terminator: Genisys_.”

He wasn’t really expecting a reply, Derek being Derek, but he actually got one, the dry reply of, “What even was that.”

Grinning widely, Stiles texted back, “Did you know there was originally going to be a sequel to _Se7en_ called _Ei8ht_ , where Morgan Freeman’s character had psychic powers?”

“You’re lying.”

“Nope. Google it.”

Some time later, Derek replied, “Holy shit.”

They talked for a little while about how Stiles would love to be in a David Fincher movie, and the different directors that Derek had worked under. He fell asleep still clutching his phone.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Lydia got the script first, and read it before sending it to Stiles. She sent it with the commentary, “Take frequent water breaks.” With no idea what _that_ cryptic comment meant, Stiles opened the file and began to read. Before long, he was engrossed. The script was great. The script was _incredible_. The script was building on everything he and Derek had conveyed in the first movie. The script was . . . the script was . . .

He called Lydia and shouted, “This is a romance!”

Lydia gave a snort and said, “Do you understand how telephones work, Stiles? You just speak into them. You don’t need to shout as if you’re trying to cross the distance. I can hear you.”

“Lydia! This! Is! A! Romance!”

“Yes, I was getting that idea. I mean, I suppose it’s not one hundred percent overt – no kissing, no dramatic I-love-yous, but it would honestly be difficult to read it as anything else.”

Stiles finally managed to calm down and say, “Lydia, is there any chance you could get me some face time with Deucalion in the next week or so? Just five minutes would be fine.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Lydia said, and hung up.

The next day, he got an e-mail from her with a date a few days away and a time, saying that Deucalion would give him a call on Skype. Stiles practically sat on his hands trying to keep from chewing his knuckles to shreds with excitement and anxiety. Finally, Deucalion appeared on the screen, with his pleasantly neutral smile. “Good morning, Stiles. You got the script for the second movie?”

“Yeah, it’s amazing,” Stiles said, and Deucalion’s smile widened. “I was going to start rehearsing and I just wanted to clarify a, uh, a couple points as regards to characterization.”

“Go ahead,” Deucalion said.

“I mean.” Stiles’ throat feels dry. “It reads like a romance. Like, if one of the characters was a woman, I would read it that way as a matter of course. I just. I wanted to make sure I was reading it correctly.”

Deucalion looked amused. “You’re unaware of the, er, _phenomenon_ you and Derek have created, I take it.”

Stiles blinked. “What phenomenon?”

“Your chemistry in that first movie was fantastic, Stiles. I think it had a lot to do with us getting the sequels approved. You and Derek’s relationship was central to the movies. People wanted to see more of it, wanted to see it develop. There’s an enormous online movement for the two characters to become a romantic couple.”

“Huh,” Stiles said. It wasn’t that he was unaware of the concept of an online fandom – he might or might not have written some Buffy fanfiction in his younger days – but he tried to stay away from it when it applied to himself. “Cool. Do we have a ship name? I wanna look it up.”

Deucalion coughed a little, trying to mask a laugh. “As it happens, you do. I think it’s Sonamin? Sonjamin? Something close to that. In any case, since the public had such a strong opinion about it, I went back and watched the movie through that lens. And I found that I fully agreed with them. I don’t know if you – either of you – played it that way intentionally, but if you watch without heteronormativity coloring your perspective, the two characters are quite obviously falling in love.”

“A lot of directors still wouldn’t risk it, I think,” Stiles said.

At that, Deucalion shrugged. “What other directors will or won’t risk makes no difference to me. Are you uncomfortable with it?”

“Oh, no, no way,” Stiles said. “I mean, I think you’re right. I saw it when I was watching the final cut of the movie, just, the way the two characters learned to trust each other and support each other was just.” He cleared his throat. “I just wanted to make sure I was clear before I started leaning into that characterization.”

“You’ll get the third script soon, since we’re going to be filming them back to back, and in that one it becomes quite overtly clear,” Deucalion said. “But yes, you did read it correctly.”

“Okay. Great. Awesome.” Stiles took a swig of his water. “I’ll see you at the table read, then.”

Deucalion said goodbye. Stiles closed Skype, pulled up Google, and put in the ship name. Then he spit water all over his keyboard as soon as the first link popped up. The fanart was well done, beautiful, and _extremely_ explicit. Stiles had thought more than one time about being naked with Derek Hale, so to have his fantasy presented on the computer screen was more than a little shocking.

He Googled with a little more care to find a thriving online community, all of whom were dedicated to gushing over the relationship between Stiles and Derek’s characters. Stiles found himself grinning widely, thrilled to find how many people had truly adored the way they had portrayed the relationship.

After the sequels had been announced, there was a lively, ongoing debate over whether the ship would become canon.

‘No way,’ the first poster wrote. ‘They’ll never chance it. They can’t take two action heroes who were portrayed as straight in the first movie – Solomon even mentions losing his wife – and then suddenly make them gay (or bi) in the second out of nowhere.’

‘It’s not out of nowhere, though!’ a second user replied. ‘It has solid grounding in the first movie! Look at the way they _look_ at each other, for God’s sake!’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ a third person said. ‘It did too well for them to risk it. They’ll probably introduce a love interest for one of them instead.’

‘Ugh, you’re so right,’ the first person said. ‘I saw that Jennifer Blake had been cast – it’ll probably be her.’

‘Come on, let us dream,’ someone else replied. ‘Did you see that bit in the cave? The one where they’re both being so vulnerable and honest with each other? There’s that bit where Solomon says something nice for the first time, and Benjamin just dips his head a little and looks up with that shy little smile on his face and uggggggggggggghhhhhhh. I’ve never seen a man so obviously portraying that he wants to be thrown against a wall and kissed in my entire life.’

Stiles immediately had to abandon what he was doing to pull up the movie and find that scene and my God, she was _right_. Derek’s tiny smile was charming, and his ears were even flushed a bit pink, and he so, so clearly wanted Stiles to kiss him in that moment. Stiles almost forgot that he was watching their _characters_ , that it wasn’t Derek himself who was begging to be kissed.

“Holy shit,” he said to the movie screen. “I am never going to be able to look Derek in the eye ever again.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

This time they did a pre-filming tour. It was excruciating. Literally every interviewer wanted to ask about the online following of their relationship and whether or not it was going to become canon. Since Stiles and Derek weren’t allowed to say anything about it, they had to play coy, which Stiles hated. It felt like queerbaiting even though he _knew_ it was going to become canon in the long run.

One of the interviewers tried to goad them, saying, “I suppose two action star heroes like you wouldn’t be _comfortable_ with that, would you.”

Stiles was all set with an indignant retort, but Derek did one better, staring at the reporter blankly and saying, “Why not?”

“Well – ” the reporter cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Just – having to portray a gay relationship when you’ve both built careers on masculinity – ”

“I don’t follow,” Derek said, politely.

“It’s just – you know, some people feel like playing a gay character might damage that image – ”

“Interesting. Why is that?” Derek said, and Stiles had to choke back a laugh at Derek’s increasingly aggressive pretend confusion.

“Ah, well, you know what, never mind. It wasn’t a good question – ”

“No, it wasn’t,” Derek agreed.

They somehow managed to get through the rest of the interviews without Stiles stopping to remember that and laugh every two minutes. For the first time, Derek accepted Stiles’ offer to go out and get a drink afterwards, although he insisted they go to a regular sports bar instead of one of the fancier LA establishments. Given the way those were always crawling with paparazzi, Stiles figured this was a sound idea. Regular Los Angeles citizens generally abided by the code of ‘if you see a celebrity in the wild, do not approach’ – or so Stiles had heard. He had never been famous enough to warrant that kind of attention.

“I want to tell you something,” Derek said abruptly, after they’ve had their first drink. “But I need you to promise you won’t say anything to anyone else.”

“Cross my heart,” Stiles said, making the gesture.

Derek hesitated, then leaned in a little closer so he could lower his voice. “I’m gay.”

“Oh.” Stiles felt an immediate swell of hope for their future romance, but squashed it down because Derek was being vulnerable and confiding in him and this was _important_. “Okay. That’s totally cool, man, you know that, right?”

“I know. I just.” Derek looked away for a moment before saying, “I wasn’t sure if it would make you uncomfortable, going into the third movie with, you know, the explicit romance.”

“You know, I’ve never understood that idea,” Stiles said. “Every time I film a kiss or a sexual type of scene with a woman, the law of averages dictates that we would both be attracted to the opposite gender, and therefore possibly each other. But nobody ever asks me, ‘are you uncomfortable filming that sort of scene with a woman who could be sexually attracted to you?’ So I don’t see why I would suddenly be uncomfortable filming a scene with a man who could, in theory, be sexually attracted to me.”

“I think it’s because you wouldn’t be attracted in return?” Derek said, then shrugged. “Homophobia is a hell of a drug, I guess.”

Stiles gave a snort. “That’s true. But in any case, the first wouldn’t apply, because I’m bisexual.” He saw Derek’s eyebrows go up in a little bit of surprise, and laughed. “I never get why people are surprised about that. I mean, you probably haven’t read the history of my life or whatever, but reporters and people online always seem surprised even though I’ve literally never tried to hide it. I’ve dated both guys and girls openly since before I even got my first role.”

“I guess it’s a little weird in Hollywood to find someone who isn’t really protective of their personal life,” Derek said.

“I’m not famous enough for people to care.”

“Not yet, anyway.” Derek started in on his second drink. “I was actually thinking about coming out when the Me Too movement started and I decided I wanted to . . . make a statement about Kate. I was afraid that coming out would distract from that, so . . .” He shrugged. “Maybe someday.”

“Well, on the upside, you’ve given me an idea,” Stiles said. Derek looked apprehensive, which made Stiles laugh. “For next time a reporter is being a dick, that’s all.”

They had some onion rings and watched the game before heading their separate ways. The next day, Stiles greeted Derek enthusiastically, feeling like they were finally friends. Derek gave him the same shy smile that he had given during the movie, and Stiles just about died on the spot.

It was only the third interview before one of the reporters asked, “So why are you so reluctant to talk about the progression of Solomon and Benjamin’s relationship?”

“Because it dives straight into spoiler territory,” Stiles said, and Derek nodded. “I think about twenty people have asked us this so far, so I want to clear up a few points, maybe you can pass a message or two along to everyone else. Derek and I aren’t ‘uncomfortable’,” he made air quotes, “with the way some people online have interpreted their relationship in the first movie. I understand that a lot of people want the relationship to become romantic, and frankly if I were in their shoes, I would be tearing my hair out watching Derek and I sidestep questions about it. But we’re just trying not to get in trouble!” he added, and the reporter laughed. “I’m bisexual myself, so I understand how important representation is, and trust me, I _know_ how frustrating queerbaiting is. But we can’t talk about it, because it would give away too much of what’s going to happen in the second and third movie. All I’ll say is ‘shippers, ship on’, and ‘please don’t fire me for having said that, Paramount’.”

“So you’re bisexual?” the interviewer said.

Stiles looked at Derek. “Why did I _know_ that was the part they were going to focus on?” he asked, and Derek gave a snort of laughter. “Yep. Been out and proud since I was sixteen. It _literally_ says on my official Facebook page that I’m bi. But nobody ever goes to it because everyone likes Derek better.”

Derek huffed out another laugh at that. “Check your privacy settings.”

“You’re right, that’s probably the problem.”

They had eight more interviews and actually got some questions that _weren’t_ about the relationship between the two characters, and finally finished for the day around four PM. “Wanna grab a bite to eat?” Stiles asked.

Derek shook his head. “Can’t. I have a meeting with my agent and my publicist.”

“Okay. See you on set in a couple weeks, then?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you then,” Derek said, with another combination chin-dip-shy-smile and Stiles had to rush out of the building before he could do something drastic. He walked into three things on his way to his car.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	3. Chapter 3

 

They were filming the second and third movies back-to-back, for releases a year apart, and Stiles was one hundred percent sure that people were going to leave the movie theater screaming after the second one. It ended in a classic cliffhanger. Derek’s character, Benjamin, had been welcomed back into the elite society, the safe haven that had ejected him at the beginning of the first movie. Solomon, at the same time, had been captured by the same society. The question left unanswered was whether or not Benjamin would give up his own safety, as well as the life he had always been taught he deserved, to save Solomon.

“This is so good,” Stiles said, reading the first page of the third script, which had been delivered to them during their first week of filming. Derek, reading in the chair beside him, nodded in silence. “This is _so good_.”

The third movie would then open with Benjamin going about daily life in the haven, making it look liked he had been reassimilated into his former life. Of course, he was only putting on a show until he could get to Solomon.

“You shouldn’t have,” Solomon said when Benjamin came to rescue him. “You could have had your life back.”

“My life wouldn’t mean _anything_ if you weren’t in it,” Benjamin replied, and that was the set up for their first kiss. Stiles slid out of his chair and lay on the ground, holding the script to his chest and flailing with glee.

“You okay?” Derek asked dryly.

“I’m fucking _delighted_ ,” Stiles said, and Derek gave a snort of laughter. “We are going to break the internet, Derek. The entire fucking internet.”

Not that he was anywhere near as confident when they got around to actually _filming_ that scene. He popped six breathmints ahead of time and nervously babbled to the makeup team until he saw them surreptitiously rolling their eyes at him. He reminded himself that he’d had other on-screen kisses. This shouldn’t be a big deal. Filming kisses was incredibly unromantic through eight layers of makeup, fifteen kinds of lighting, and ninety people standing around ready to critique his performance. And yet, he felt like a nervous kid before prom, unsure of exactly how things were going to work.

He didn’t have to worry. Things worked _perfectly_. He mumbled out his line – it was supposed to be mumbled, because of how badly Solomon was hurt – and then Derek said his. Then, without giving Stiles a chance to over analyze, Derek _lunged_ into that kiss. Stiles made a surprised noise against his mouth and then went for broke. When Derek pulled away a few moments later, Stiles was stunned and panting for breath.

“Cut!” Deucalion shouted.

Derek looked over at him, all professional calm, and said, “Again?”

“No, actually,” Deucalion said. “That was perfect. Could not have been better. I just wanted to cut before something could ruin it. Let’s move on to the next shot.”

Stiles was on cloud nine the rest of the day.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles’ favorite part of the movie was the wedding. The two characters decided to get magically bound just before the last battle, so they wouldn’t be separated no matter what happened. The writers had done some research and found an ancient ceremony to use for realism’s sake, and it was strange and beautiful. It was also _difficult_ , with a lot of words that were hard to pronounce and gestures that had to be made just so, then emotion to layer on top of it. By the time they had finally gotten it right, it was his _least_ favorite part of the movie.

“Wanna like . . .” Stiles said when that day’s filming was finally over. He couldn’t even figure out how to finish a sentence. “Go die in a ditch?”

Derek gave a snort. “I’ve had longer days on set,” he said, then added, “but not many.”

“Yeah.” Stiles flopped into his chair. “Why am I not famous enough yet to have a palanquin?”

“Find me one single celebrity with a palanquin.”

“I bet at least one of the Kardashians does, and you can’t possibly expect me to remember their names or be able to tell them apart.”

“Fair enough.” Derek grabbed Stiles by the wrists, hauled him to his feet, and half-carried him back to his trailer. Stiles didn’t really need the help, but he let Derek help him anyway, because it was awesome. “See you tomorrow.”

Stiles somehow resisted the urge to ask Derek if he wasn’t going to come tuck him in. There was only so much awkwardness even he could stand. He made himself a microwave dinner and fell asleep in front of his computer.

There were three more weeks of filming after that, most of them just as strenuous. As much as Stiles had valued the experience, he was also grateful that it was over. He called Lydia on the day before filming ended and said, “I don’t even want to think about acting for at least two weeks. Seriously, if there are scripts waiting to be read, they can wait.”

“Are you sure?” Lydia asked. “They’re casting the three leads for Star Wars: Episode Ten.”

“What? Okay, yes, send an e-mail, I will audition for all three.”

 Lydia gave a snort of laughter. “I’ll submit your name for consideration.”

“You’re the bomb!”

The wrap party was some of the most fun he had ever had in his life. The one disappointment was that Derek didn’t attend. Stiles sulked about it a little, but managed to have a good time regardless. He had made a lot of good friends on the set of the movie, people that he hoped to be able to work with again someday. He exchanged numbers, took a hundred selfies, danced and drank until almost dawn.

After that, he took an early morning flight up to Sacramento. His father picked him up at the airport and hugged him for several long minutes before they piled into the car to drive up to Beacon Hills. He spent a few days relaxing and visiting with his high school friends, all of whom wanted to hear every detail about how filming had gone. They were all very put out by the fact that he wouldn’t tell them whether or not the relationship was going to become canon.

“It does,” Scott said to the others. “Look at his face! That is definitely the face of the man who got to make out with his idol on camera.”

“Shut up!” Stiles said, laughing despite himself.

The weird thing was, although he wasn’t doing much of anything, he wound up more tired at the end of his vacation than he was at the beginning. His father noticed, and Stiles brushed him off, saying, “I’m probably just coming down with a virus or something. Dumb Beacon Hills germs.”

Noah looked dubious. “I use a lot of cleaning charms, you know – ”

“Those things aren’t foolproof, especially if you don’t make sure to wave them in every corner.” Stiles yawned. “I’ll be fine.”

“You could stay a few extra days, if you wanted.”

“Nah, I’m gonna have auditions soon. Besides, Beacon Hills doesn’t have a good sushi restaurant.”

“Stardom has spoiled you,” Noah said solemnly, and Stiles gave a snort of laughter.

Still, by the time he got back to his apartment in Los Angeles, he was sure he was coming down with something. He felt listless and draggy. A good night’s sleep solved nothing. He woke up with a headache at least two hours after he was normally up for the day, and it took real effort to convince himself to get out of bed long enough to get some food. He’d had weird dreams, too. Dreaming about Derek Hale’s amazing body wasn’t exactly new for him, but these dreams were a lot more vivid than usual.

His phone rang at about half past noon, while he was eating his chicken noodle soup, and he saw that it was Lydia. “Hey, what’s up,” he greeted her.

“I’ve got some audition details for you about Star Wars Six-hundred-twelve,” she said. “They’re starting with taped auditions, and a little birdie told me they’d move yours to the top of the pile.”

“Okay,” Stiles said. “Sounds great. Send me the deets.”

There was a pause, and then Lydia said, “Are you okay? I was expecting you to start screeching at me like usual.”

“Yeah, I’m okay, I think I’m coming down with some sort of bug,” Stiles told her. “I have the all-around-blahs. Did you want me to screech?”

“That’s quite all right,” Lydia said hastily. “You’re going to need me to feed you lines, so how about I pick up some dinner and come over around six?”

“Very cool,” Stiles said. “Send me the script and I’ll prep.”

He had the script about ten minutes later, and looked it over. It was a scene from the original trilogy that had been scrapped at some point, so it took place in the universe without giving anything away from the upcoming film. They had him reading for Han Solo, which had him kicking his feet in glee regardless of how awful he felt. He rehearsed it, filmed himself rehearsing it, watched himself rehearsing it, and then decided to take a nap. He wanted to be at his best when he did the real thing.

Lydia showed up at six on the dot, carrying take-out containers from a nearby Thai restaurant she favored. She did a double take when she saw him. “Wow, you look awful. Are you sure you want to do this today?”

“Yeah, I’m game, I took a nap and a hot shower,” he said. “Let’s eat first, though.”

They talked some business while they ate, and about who else Lydia knew was in the running for the role (a list of names that just about killed Stiles on the spot). Finally, she put some makeup on him to hide the bags under his eyes, and they got to work. They read through it once together, and then Stiles turned the camera on. He had done taped auditions before, and always had to remind himself to look towards the camera, not whoever was feeding him lines.

They taped it once, then watched it so both he and Lydia could make some notes on his performance. All in all, they went through it four times before he proclaimed himself satisfied. She said she would send it in as soon as she got to the office the next morning. They forewent their usual cheek kiss goodbye since Stiles was sick, and he slumped off towards bed.

 He expected he would feel better the next morning. Viruses usually passed in about twenty-four to forty-eight hours, in his experience, and he’d been sick at least twelve hours longer than that. But when he woke up, he had to drag himself to the bathroom and then back to bed. His entire body ached; it felt like he had run a marathon. The exhaustion had gotten even worse, and seemed to be making his muscles weak and limp. He didn’t even have enough energy to worry about how awful he felt. He forced himself to drink two glasses of water because he knew hydration was important, then crawled onto the sofa.

 He fell asleep immediately, and back into restless dreams. These dreams once again featured Derek Hale, and how much Stiles wanted to crawl into his arms and never leave them. He woke up when the sun shifted and hit his eyes, and groaned.

For a minute, he considered calling Derek, but what could he say? “Hi, I feel like crap and I keep dreaming about snuggling with you, so would you like to come over and snuggle with me?” He’d had some embarrassing conversations in his life, but that one would definitely take the cake. He thought about texting him instead, just to distract himself, but in the end decided he was too tired to care. He managed to make and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, drink another two glasses of water, and then go back to bed.

 When he woke again, he had no idea what time it was. He had no idea what _day_ it was. His phone was ringing, and he fumbled for it and mumbled, “’Lo?”

 “Stiles?” Lydia’s voice was sharp and worried. “I’ve been texting you all morning. Are you okay?”

 “Jesus,” Stiles muttered, trying to focus. “Fuck. Yeah. I think. I’ve been sleeping for like two days now.”

He could practically hear Lydia’s frown. She said, “Look, it’s almost lunch time. I’m going to come over and check on you. You sound terrible. I think you should probably see a doctor.”

 “Sure, Lyds,” Stiles said, not even arguing, which he knew would worry her even more. He groaned and rolled over onto his side, which made every muscle in his body protest. He thought about getting up and trying to clean himself up before she got there, but decided it wasn’t worth it. Lydia had seen him at some impressively low points. He wasn’t going to worry about her seeing him with the flu.

 She arrived with what looked like an entire pharmacy, remarked on how awful he looked, and then took his temperature. “No fever,” she said, and frowned.

 “Isn’t that a good thing, doc?”

 “It’s an odd thing,” Lydia said. “What you’re describing – exhaustion and body aches – sounds like the flu. But you don’t have the fever that would go with it. Which means I’m not really sure what’s wrong with you, and I’m trying to decide whether or not it’s worth it to bring you to a doctor when they’ll just say it’s a virus and tell you to keep doing what you’re doing until you feel better.” She shook her head. “Still, let’s get some fluids and some painkillers into you. And some food. When was the last time you ate?”

 “Yesterday . . . I think,” Stiles said.

Lydia pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay. Up you get.”

She pried him out of bed, harangued him into the shower, and bullied him downstairs. He had no appetite whatsoever but he also didn’t have the energy to argue with her, so he ate the scrambled eggs and toast she put in front of him. She cast aspersions at what was available to cook, and he had no doubt that she would make him a gourmet meal if the right supplies were available.

He was halfway through his meal when Lydia’s phone rang. She glanced it and then picked up, “This is Lydia Martin . . . of course, hello! How are you . . . uh huh. Hm.” A faint frown furrowed her face. “Now? . . . I see . . . okay, but I will be expecting answers when we arrive. It’ll be about forty minutes depending on traffic . . . yes, of course. Okay, see you then.”

Seeing the look on her face as she hung up, Stiles said, “Who was that?”

“Deucalion,” she said, and he blinked at her in surprise. “He’s actually why I was texting you this morning. He had called me first thing, asking if you would be available for an interview this afternoon because a journalist friend of his was unexpectedly in town for the day and he wanted to give her an exclusive. I told him I would have to check with you because I knew you hadn’t been feeling well. After I gave up on texting you and heard how awful you sounded, I called and let his assistant know that you wouldn’t be available.”

“Okay . . . and?”

“And, he just called me back to say that he thinks he might know why you aren’t well, that there were ‘other complaints’, he said.” Lydia’s frown deepened. “If there was exposure to some sort of chemical on set, Paramount is going to have a lawsuit the size of Deucalion’s overinflated head to deal with.” She shook her head and said, “You’d better put on something other than pajamas.”

Stiles moaned and whined all the way to the car, while Lydia dragged him along a little more gently than usual. Once he wasn’t being forced to move, he settled down, even dozing a bit as she got onto the highway. About half an hour later, they were at the studio. She shepherded him out of the car and into one of the office buildings.

Standing inside the office was Deucalion, along with another person that Stiles hadn’t met before. Stiles immediately filed them away as irrelevant, because another person in the office was Derek Hale, looking a little worn and haggard himself. Stiles couldn’t stop himself; he lurched forward and wrapped his arms around Derek’s neck, burying his face in Derek’s shoulder. He was wearing a V-neck shirt so his neck was nicely exposed and his skin felt _amazing_ against Stiles’, and he groaned a little as some of the fatigue and pain was leeched away.

Someone cleared their throat, and Stiles came back to himself with an abrupt thud. “Oh my God!” he yelped, backpedaling so fast that he nearly fell. “Oh my God, I’m _so_ sorry, I don’t know what came over me – I would never – I didn’t mean to – ” He fought for coherency while his body screamed at the loss of contact, ordered him in no uncertain terms to get Derek’s body back against his own.

“Ah, it isn’t your fault.” Deucalion pinched the bridge of his nose. “Derek, your sister told me that you have also been under the weather?”

“Yeah,” Derek said, a low mutter. He was staring at Stiles in a way that made Stiles feel like he wasn’t the only one fighting his impulses.

“What the hell is going on?” Lydia asked, her voice coated in frost.

“Yes, well, you see . . .” Deucalion cleared his throat again. “In an effort for authenticity, the writer used an actual binding ceremony in the script. The casting director, wanting to make sure it was pronounced correctly, found an actual shaman to perform it. He did so.”

“You – you mean – are you saying we’re _actually married_?” Stiles managed to squeeze out of his rapidly closing throat. Derek’s face goes even more tight and angry.

“In a manner of speaking,” Deucalion said. “If the manner is ancient Sumerian.”

“I don’t get it, though,” the other woman, apparently Derek’s sister, said. “Why would it be making them sick?”

“It’s the separation making us sick, isn’t it,” Stiles said, now understanding the way he had jumped on Derek at their reunion. “The binding ceremony enacts a penalty if the two people bound are separated.”

“That’s one hell of a marriage,” Lydia said.

“The priest said it wouldn’t normally happen that way, but, unfortunately . . .”

“But we filmed the scene _seventeen damn times_ ,” Derek bit out. “We’re married _seventeen times over_.”

Deucalion spread his hands out in front of himself and said, somewhat reluctantly, “Yes. Just so.”

“Oh my God,” Stiles mumbled into his hands. Two weeks ago, he would have given his left kidney to be married to Derek Hale. This dream scenario is more like a nightmare. “Okay, uh, how do we – uh, how do we undo it?” His gaze darted to Derek, whose expression doesn’t change. “Because look, I can think of worse people to be accidentally married to, but we’ve still got careers and lives and shit.”

“We’re working on that,” Deucalion said. “In the meantime, just . . . try to enjoy each other’s company.”

Derek gave him an incredulous look. Even Stiles felt pretty skeptical. “How, uh, how much company?” he asked. Derek’s gaze shifted to him and his ears flushed pink. Stiles yelped again as he realized how that sounded. “No! Oh God. I just meant – how much _time_. How much time do we need to spend together before we’re feeling normal again?”

“The shaman said that, since you had the prolonged separate that made you sick, you should probably spend the next forty-eight hours or so together,” Deucalion said. “Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to say how much time you would need to spend together on a long-term basis. Hopefully it won’t even come up. I have people researching the spell to find a way to undo it.”

“Great,” Stiles said weakly, as Deucalion left the room. “Swell. Awesome.”

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose. “Laura, can you drive us back to my place?”

“Sure,” Laura said, with a sympathetic smile.

Lydia gave Stiles a hug and said she would run to his apartment and pack a bag of his things that she could drop off later. Stiles could barely get his thoughts together, but he nodded and then followed Derek and Laura out to the _gorgeous_ black Camaro that, admittedly, had him drooling a bit.

“Shove over,” Derek growled at him, as he climbed into the back.

“Oh, you wanna sit back here with me?” Stiles blinked at him but did as he was told. “Sure, uh, okay.”

They were sitting close enough together that their legs were bumping into each other, and it made Stiles want to crawl into Derek’s lap. He focused on breathing steadily and clenching and relaxing his fists. Laura kept up a steady stream of chatter to try to keep the mood light until they got to Derek’s house.

To Stiles’ surprise, it was a modest home, suitable for one family but not much bigger than that. Instead of having a mansion in one of the priciest neighborhoods, Derek lived in Manhattan Beach, in a row of houses that were tightly packed together. “I’ll call you later,” Laura said, as they got out of the car.

The house was somewhat sparsely furnished, and Stiles had a feeling that someone other than Derek had done the decorating. “So, uh . . .” Derek said, and they stared at each other for a few moments.

“Look,” Stiles said, his voice strained, “there is obviously a _lot_ to unpack out of ‘married seventeen times over’ but I literally cannot focus on anything right now because I can’t stop thinking about how much I want to push my face into your chest. Can we please just – ”

“Yes,” Derek bit out, so quickly that it was obvious he had been resisting the impulse as much as Stiles had. He grabbed Stiles by the wrist and towed him onto the sofa. A bare moment later, Stiles was nestled in his lap with his face pressed into Derek’s neck and it felt amazing. It wasn’t sexual, he thought somewhat drowsily, but more like the first drink of water after a long thirst, or his head hitting a clean pillowcase when he was exhausted.

“Son of a . . .” he mumbled, and Derek didn’t reply. “This kinda sucks. Like. It feels great. Awesome. But I don’t like being forced to enjoy something. It’s weird, you know?”

“Yeah,” Derek replied.

“And if I had to be accidentally married to someone, you’d be in, like, my top three, but at the same time this is weird and I’m making it more weird by talking about it and I should stop immediately.” Stiles shook himself a little. “Okay. How about a movie? We both like movies. We can just hang out, you know, two dudes watching a movie while cuddling on a sofa.”

Derek gave a little snort at that, but said, “Okay.” He fumbled for a remote and turned the television on. He had Amazon on Demand and Netflix, so he didn’t have to get up. They debated for a few minutes before deciding that they’d prefer something classic that they had both seen, so they didn’t have to concentrate too hard. This ended up being a Firefly marathon, which would keep them busy for most of the day.

By dinner time, Stiles was feeling a lot better. The exhaustion and dull pain had faded. He didn’t exactly feel awesome, but just mildly ill. Lydia had dropped off his bag of things with enough clothes to stay for three or four days.

“Wanna order some takeout?” he said.

“Sure,” Derek said. “There’s a great Mexican place just down the street. We’d have to walk down and pick it up, but totally worth it.”

Stiles grimaced. “Do you think we can handle being apart half an hour? Because you know if we walk out of this place together and someone snaps a photo, the paparazzi are going to be on us like white on rice.” He paused. “What does that phrase even mean? Rice _is_ white, the white isn’t _on_ the rice – ”

Derek looked like felt a migraine coming on. “Let’s get pizza instead.”

They ordered some food. Stiles was feeling pent up and restless after the long day on the sofa, so they ate out back. Derek’s ‘backyard’ was only a small patio with a few plants, and there wasn’t a lot of room to move, but it was better than nothing. Besides, the weather was good. Stiles was still curious about Derek’s house, but he had a feeling that it might be too personal a topic. Instead he asked about what sort of scripts Derek had read lately, if he liked to have down time in between movies or if he liked to go straight from one project to another.

“So are you an ‘early to bed, early to rise’ kind of guy?” Stiles asked, as the sun set. “Or are you a night owl? Or somewhere in between? I’m more of a ‘sleep when the mood strikes me’ sort of person, but I’m still pretty worn out from, you know, the magic bullshit.”

“I guess I’m usually up pretty early,” Derek said. “Like, sevenish.”

“Yeah, yuck, that is early,” Stiles said, and Derek gave a snort. “But okay. I, uh, I was thinking we’d probably want to sleep in the same room, at least . . .”

Derek’s face set in a grimace, but he nodded. “I don’t have a room with two beds, but I do have a king-sized bed, so.” He cleared his throat. “I guess it’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” Stiles felt a well of relief that Derek wasn’t going to try to say they shouldn’t share a bed. The thought of being out of contact with Derek for that long made a panicky bird flutter around in his chest.

They watched another movie and then headed upstairs. Stiles ducked into the bathroom to change into the T-shirt and pajama pants that Lydia had put in his bag. When he came back out, Derek was wearing boxers and a tank top that made Stiles want to drool all over his shoulder. He cleared his throat and said, “Uh, you okay with white noise? I can’t sleep without it. I have an app on my phone.”

“I’ll just leave the fan on,” Derek said, going over to the window, and Stiles nodded. A minute later, they were in bed and Derek had turned the lights off. There was still some street light coming in through the window, so it wasn’t pitch black. “Do you want to . . .?”

“Yeah, really kinda yeah,” Stiles confessed, before Derek had to say the word cuddle. “Big spoon or little?”

“I don’t know, really,” Derek said. “I’m not much of a spooner.”

“Me neither, to be honest. I’ve never really figured it out. Like, I had a girlfriend once for a while, and every attempt we made at spooning, when I woke up I couldn’t feel my arm and had a mouthful of her hair. I do normally sleep on my side, though, so maybe we can come up with some sort of position that’s like an adaptation of how we normally sleep, and am I talking way too much again? I feel like I am.”

Derek gave a quiet snort. “I don’t mind when you talk too much,” he said, making Stiles’ heart bang around in his chest. “I sleep on my side, yeah.”

“Okay, then just like – ” Stiles rolled onto his side and then edged closer to Derek until he could rest his forearms against Derek’s back, keeping them tucked up between them. “How’s that?”

“It’s fine,” Derek said. “Can you move your legs a bit?”

“Forward or back?”

“Forward, like – ”

A few moments later, Derek had hooked his ankle around Stiles’ calf and their legs were twined together.

A few moments after that, they were both sound asleep.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

Stiles jolted awake when a car horn blasted outside. Derek twitched in his sleep but didn’t fully wake, and a few moments later had relaxed back into sleep. Stiles glanced over at him and had to take a minute to fully admire how gorgeous he was, with his bed hair and his stubble and peaceful face. He shook himself, realizing he was being creepy, and climbed out of bed. There was no way he would fall back to sleep, and a glance at the clock showed it was about six thirty.

He took a quick shower, finding towels in a closet in the hallway, and then dressed and went downstairs. He decided to take a look in Derek’s refrigerator and see if there was anything he could make them for breakfast.

The fridge wasn’t exactly packed, but it had some eggs and some milk. He found a rather dusty box of Bisquick in the pantry and set to work. The kitchen looked like it wasn’t used a lot, but at least he had the basics. Stiles whisked the pancake mix quickly and poured some into the pan.

One problem with using someone else’s kitchen, he found, was that the burners on the stove worked differently. The stove in his old apartment was a gas stove, but Derek had one of the fancy new ones that was all flat surfaces. It took longer to heat up, but then burned with an intensity not unlike the sun, and the next thing Stiles knew, his pancakes were black and smoking. “Shit,” he muttered, taking the pan off the burner. He was just about to scrape them into the trash when the fire alarm went off and he nearly dropped it. “Oh, come on!” he shouted at the ceiling. “It wasn’t that much smoke!”

Derek came bolting down the stairs in his boxers a bare moment later, and Stiles blurted out, “Sorry sorry sorry! I was trying to make breakfast! I didn’t think it was that smoky, really!”

Derek dragged a chair over to the smoke alarm and held down the button until it turned off. He shook his head at Stiles and said, “I have them programmed to be extra sensitive.”

“What the hell for?” Stiles demanded, but then remembered. “Oh, fuck, I am so sorry, I forgot – ”

“It’s fine.” Derek opened the kitchen window and Stiles turned the fan on over the oven. “I used to set them off all the time before I gave up on cooking entirely.”

“I was trying to make pancakes,” Stiles said.

Derek gave him an unreadable look for a long moment before saying, “Well, that was your first mistake.”

Stiles gave a quiet snort. “Yeah, you’re right on that score. Okay, uh. Should I try again? Are you hungry?”

“I could eat, but that Bisquick is older than I am, probably,” Derek said. “There should be some bread, though, so how about French toast?”

“Yeah, okay, good thought.”

 Stiles manages to make the French toast and the scrambled eggs with some cheese and ham from the deli he found in Derek’s refrigerator, while Derek went upstairs to shower and change. About twenty minutes later, they were sitting down over breakfast, which was nicer than he had expected. Stiles mentioned learning to cook after his mother died, and Derek shows a surprising (to Stiles) amount of interest in Stiles’ family and his life before movie stardom. Despite the weirdness of the situation, Stiles felt like Derek was really relaxing around him for the first time, treating him like a friend instead of a coworker.

The day wasn’t anywhere near as awkward as the previous one had been. It seemed like the day and night together had soothed most of the craving for skin-to-skin contact and they could just hang out in the same room and be fine. Derek had some scripts he was reading, which Stiles wanted to hear about. Lydia had brought him his laptop, so he wasted time on the internet. They watched another movie. He skyped with his father to tell him that he was feeling better (but didn’t mention the whole ‘accidentally married’ thing, since hopefully they’d have it resolved soon). They chatted about the upcoming press tour.

At dinner, they both seemed relaxed enough that they thought a little separation wouldn’t hurt anything. Derek ordered from the Mexican restaurant and walked down to get it. Stiles was a little antsy with him gone, but he wasn’t sure if that was because of the spell or if it was just his normal edginess.

They played some video games and slept in the same bed again, without needing to talk about it.

Stiles woke up the next morning actually looking forward to the day. He was wondering if maybe they could try going out somewhere. If they left the city, it was unlikely that anyone would take their photograph, right? They weren’t exactly Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. It wasn’t like they would get stopped in a Jamba Juice.

He tentatively brought it up to Derek, who looked a little skeptical but didn’t outright reject the idea. They were tossing around ideas of where they might go when Derek’s phone rang. He frowned at the screen and then picked it up. “Hello?” A moment later, he said, “Yeah, hi. Hang on, I’m going to put you on speaker.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and added, “It’s Deucalion,” before tapping the screen and putting the phone on the kitchen table. “Okay, go ahead.”

“Well, it’s not much of an update, I’m afraid,” Deucalion said. “The shaman didn’t know a way to reverse the spell, so he called some experts, who called some _other_ experts, who - long story short, if there is a way to reverse the spell, nobody knows what it is.”

“So we’re stuck like this?” Derek bites out, seeing that Stiles is speechless, or maybe just not caring if he had something to say.

“For the time being, I’m afraid so,” Deucalion said. “We’ll keep researching, of course - there was a monk in Tibet he wanted to speak to who might know more about the origins of the binding spell, but he said it might take some time to find him.”

Derek said nothing. Stiles wracked his brain for something intelligent or empathetic to say. What came out was, “Should we file a work comp claim? I mean, what the hell even? Should I call my union rep? Guild rep? Whatever they call them these days? Would they even know what to do with that? Is there a diagnosis code used for ‘accidentally magically married on set’? I know ICD-10 got pretty specific, but - ”

“Stop talking,” Derek said, so Stiles did.

“I’ll keep you posted, of course,” Deucalion said. “And I’ll be seeing you in a few months, I assume - for the press tour kickoff.”

“Oh, yeah, great. Super. Awesome.” Stiles resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall and tell Deucalion to blow it out his ass. He grimaced as he saw the look on Derek’s face, as Derek picked up the phone and hung up even though Deucalion was still talking. “Look, uh, it won’t be that bad, I guess? I mean, like I said, you’d be in my top three people to be accidentally married to, so - ”

“It’s not - ” Derek stopped and forced himself to take a deep breath. “I can’t _do_ this, Stiles. Telling myself to put up with it for a day or two was one thing, but I, I can’t have someone in my space, in my life, someone that I _have to_ put up with being close to me, I just - ”

Thinking back to what had happened with Kate, Stiles felt like he understood intellectually even if he didn’t, couldn’t, quite get it emotionally. “Look, okay, we’ll make it work. Okay? Like. We need more space, we can figure that out, we’ll just, just taper the amount of time we spend together down slowly until we start to feel sick again, and then we’ll at least have a baseline of what we have to do to stay healthy until they get it fixed. I mean, it might only be an hour a day, right? We could hold hands for five minutes and then not see each other for two days and be fine. I, I know that even that’s not awesome, that being forced to do that must suck, I mean, it _does_ suck, but - ” He saw the intense scowl on Derek’s face start to crack into a reluctant smile and said, “Fuck, I’m doing it again, aren’t I. You’ve gotta stop me when I do that!”

“Now, why would I do that?” Derek took in another breath, and let it out slowly. “Okay. Yeah. That’s a good idea, tapering it off slowly so we’ll know what we actually need.”

“And really, more space.” Stiles looked around and said, “Honestly I’ve been curious about this place, not that you need to tell me, but if you got a bigger place, then you could like, stick me in the west wing or whatever and we could just have dinner together every night or watch a movie before bed, but still have plenty of our own space.”

“I . . . I didn’t want something big. I mean, you have a point, but, since you were curious.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Stiles said.

“I know. It’s one of those things that feels kind of stupid even if I guess it probably isn’t, but . . . I got my first really big movie role just before I turned eighteen. So I got my first ridiculous paycheck just _after_ I turned eighteen. And I used it to buy a big house for my family. I mean, my parents weren’t exactly poor, but I was one of five kids, so we were always crammed in like sardines a little. So I got them this really nice house even though I knew I wouldn’t be there to enjoy it that much. But then it burned down.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Laura was at college, and I was away filming. Cora was at a friend’s house. But everyone else was home, and . . . I know it’s stupid to feel like it’s my fault, like if I hadn’t gotten them that house, they’d still be alive, but it _does_ feel like that.”

On impulse, or maybe spurred on by the spell, Stiles reaches out and grasps both of Derek’s hands. “Yeah, the human brain is really great at being irrational. I blamed myself for my mother’s death for almost two years and it had nothing to do with me at all, she just got sick. I guess I felt like maybe if I’d been easier to take care of, she wouldn’t have? Even knowing that doesn’t make sense at all. But that’s life sometimes, you know? Bad shit happens. So you can think maybe, if you hadn’t bought them the house, they would have lived. But you can also think, maybe if they’d stayed in the old house, two weeks later they would’ve piled in the car to go out to dinner and a drunk driver would have killed them. You can’t _know_ what would have happened, so you just have to . . . remember that the universe can be random and arbitrary and it has nothing to do with you.”

“‘Cause _that’ll_ help me sleep at night,” Derek said, rolling his eyes.

Stiles shrugged. “I felt better feeling small and intimidated by an uncaring universe than I did feeling guilty for killing my mother.”

Derek seemed to ponder that for a minute, then seemed to accept it. “Anyway, I, uh, I lived in a hotel for a couple weeks. But I just didn’t want to have anything to do with the new house. This was originally for Laura and Cora, anyway, not me. They didn’t really want to have anything to do with it, either. So I told the real estate agent approximately what I was looking for and to make an offer on the first place that looked like it was a good value for the money. I set foot in this place on moving day.”

“Why do you live here now, then?” Stiles asked.

“Laura got a great job offer in San Diego, so she needed to move. She’s still nearby, and she’s great - she came up here when I mentioned I was sick without me even asking - and Cora went with her because Laura was her legal guardian. At the time, I mean. Cora’s your age so she’s an adult now, sort of. Anyway, it seemed stupid to buy another house, so I moved in here. Laura decided it was easier to buy new furniture than move this stuff, so I live in a house I didn’t choose with furniture I don’t like. But I’m just not here often enough that I’ve ever really cared, you know?”

“Yeah. But, you know, maybe this would be fun for you. I’m not saying you would want one of those mansions with an indoor bowling alley and shit, but - maybe if we pulled up some places to look at, you’d actually get into it.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Derek agreed.

They used the bedroom that Derek turned into an office, because he had a desktop computer there with a fairly large monitor that would be better for looking at pictures. Stiles cracked his knuckles and pulled up a real estate website. “Okay, first things first. I don’t want to pry but we gotta nail down a price range. What was this place, three million, maybe?”

“A little more, I think. About four.”

“And that was like eight blockbuster pictures ago, so what would you say your budget is now? Assuming you want to stay in the LA area, I’d say ten million would be the absolute minimum for the kind of space we’re looking for.”

Derek nodded, and his cheeks were colored vaguely pink as he admitted, “I could go as high as fifteen, though.”

“Aw, why are you embarrassed by that?” Stiles asked, grinning. “You’re rich and famous! It’s okay. Someday I’ll be as awesome as you. Anyway, okay. Let’s list things that are and are not important. Ocean view?”

“A view would be nice but I don’t need it,” Derek said. “But I don’t want to be too far from the beach.”

“You like to surf, right?” Stiles asked, and Derek arched his eyebrows. “Oh my God I’m not a stalker! I mean, okay, I did stalk you a little because I’ve been a huge fan of yours since I was twelve, you want to talk about _embarrassing_ , I have watched every episode of Day After Day, some of them more than once, _anyway_ , there are a hundred pictures of you surfing online. So near the ocean, okay, stop talking to me.”

Derek actually huffed out a quiet laugh. “Sir, yes, sir.”

“Pool, yes or no?”

“I wouldn’t say no if I found a house that happened to have one, but I don’t need one. I prefer the ocean.”

“Okay.”

Stiles filtered by size, price, and area, and pulled up a bunch of houses. A lot of them looked great to him, but it was Derek’s house they were looking for, so he tried not to offer too many opinions. Derek rejected a lot of them out of hand for reasons that seemed silly to Stiles. Too modern, too narrow, too much white (“You know you could paint the walls, right?” Stiles asked, and Derek shrugged). He also discovered some preferences he hadn’t realized he had, like wanting a bigger back patio because he loved to sit outside and his current place had about three square feet of backyard.

They had been looking for about half an hour when Stiles found the right house. He had to bite his lower lip to keep from saying anything, because it was _perfect_. The way it was designed split it neatly into two sections, so it would be like they each had their own house but with a communal kitchen. It was done in an older style, so Derek didn’t automatically reject it. High ceilings and hardwood floors, enormous windows. It didn’t have an ocean view, but it wasn’t far from the ocean, and had a huge backyard with a pool and a hot tub.

Derek started going through the photographs a second time.

Stiles bit his lip harder.

“This is it,” Derek said, and Stiles whooped and did a fist pump. “God, it’s gorgeous. Look at those floors, that kitchen, that patio.”

“And only eleven million!” Stiles said, as if he was anywhere near being able to afford a eleven million dollar house.

Derek gave a snort, but he already had his phone out. He thumbed through his contacts for a few moments before he stopped and tapped the screen. A moment later, he said, “Hey, Jessica, it’s Derek Hale. Yeah, good, how are you? . . . listen, I know it’s a bit short notice, but I had been thinking about getting a new place and I just saw the perfect one online, I was hoping you could get me a showing today or tomorrow. Yeah.” He gave her the address and then said, “Okay, great. Thanks.” He hung up and said, “She’s going to call the selling agent and set up a showing.”

“Awesome,” Stiles said.

Derek gave him a curious look and said, “You know, I just realized that I don’t know where you live. Do you have a place in LA?”

“Just an apartment,” Stiles said. “Nothing I won’t miss, trust me.”

“I’m surprised you hadn’t bought a place. You’ve lived here like two years now.”

“Yeah.” Stiles laughed a little and rubbed a hand over the back over his head. “I guess a part of me has always been waiting for my luck to dry up, you know? Like people would suddenly realize I’ve been faking it all this time.”

Derek’s eyebrows went up. “Isn’t that essentially what acting is?”

Stiles gave another snort of laughter. “I guess so.”

Derek turned back to the computer and started going through the photos again, probably so he wouldn’t have to look at Stiles as he said, “You shouldn’t say shit like that about yourself. You’re a really good actor. You’re going to be in this business for a long time.”

Stiles flushed dark pink. “Oh, uh, okay. Yeah. I mean. Thanks.”

The awkward moment was broken up when Derek’s phone rang. He answered it and said, “Hello? Yeah . . . okay, sounds great. Sure. We’ll meet you there – oh, uh, me and a friend of mine who’s, uh, helping me out. Okay, sure. See you then.”

“Smooth,” Stiles said, as he hung up. “We might want to think about that. Because, like, there aren’t a lot of paparazzi in this neighborhood, but there are gonna be a lot more in the richer neighborhood, and, uh, if we’re in this long-term, eventually people are going to figure it out, you know?” He saw the tight expression on Derek’s face and continued nervously, “I feel like it’s less weird to just come out with it than try to duck around them and hide it and eventually get caught, you know? I mean, we don’t have to tell everyone we’re accidentally married but it might be easier if we just said we were dating or something.”

Derek sighed. “I _hate_ people prying into my personal life. That’s something I didn’t really think about when I was a teenager. I love acting, I don’t regret my career choices, but I hate being a celebrity sometimes.”

“Sorry,” Stiles said, wincing.

“It’s not your fault. And it’s not like you asked to be accidentally married, and you’re not wrong.” He sighed again. “Maybe we should just . . . go out to lunch at a place where we know we’ll get photographed and then casually be like ‘oh, yeah, we’re dating’.”

“The internet will _explode_ ,” Stiles predicted.

“Well, that might make it worth it,” Derek said. He pulled one knee up to his chest and continued, “I didn’t used to mind it so much. Getting the attention was fun. But then I made the announcement about Kate, and . . . suddenly everything about my entire life was being picked apart by complete strangers. Every single thing I had ever said or posted was reviewed with magnifying glasses while people who liked Kate tried to find excuses for what she had done or evidence that I had made it all up.”

“That sucks,” Stiles said.

“Yeah. Laura literally stole my phone and my modem for a week because I was just obsessively refreshing webpages to see the nasty shit people were saying.” Derek shook his head. “Maybe it would be easier if we just told the truth.”

“Well, sure, but I don’t think we can,” Stiles said. “I mean, not without giving away massive spoilers about the movie.”

“Shit. I guess you’re right there.” Derek pinched the bridge of his nose and gave up.  “So, uh, she’s gonna show us the house at three. Let’s grab lunch on the way. Wanna go to Sugarfish? There’s always paparazzi there.”

“Oh my God, yes, I’ve always wanted to eat there,” Stiles said, rocketing to his feet.

“I should probably call my publicist and warn her,” Derek said with a sigh. “She can just issue a statement saying ‘yeah, they’re dating, so what?’ or something like that.”

Stiles laughed. “Sounds good.”

The food was great, the paparazzi shouted at them and took lots of pictures, the house was gorgeous. Derek talked to the real estate agent, who said she would set up an inspection just to be on the safe side, and that if it came back clean, they could be moved in by the end of the week.

By the time they got back to Derek’s, they were the headline on every celebrity website both legit and sketchy. Derek had an official Instagram page that had posted a picture of them as well, and Stiles wondered if he should get a publicist since the quality of that picture was the best of the lot.

Said publicist, a blonde named Erica who affectionately called Derek a social moron, had been clear on the fact that ‘we’re dating, so what’ would not suffice as a statement. Instead, she had crafted a masterpiece about Derek finally being confident enough to come out of the closet and be true to himself after everything he had gone through. The statement also said that Stiles and Derek had really enjoyed their time together on set and were now exploring the idea of a relationship but keeping things casual, and would appreciate their privacy being respected.

“Okay, so right now we’re spending twenty-four hours together, and about eight of them are in physical contact,” Stiles said, and Derek nodded. “So I’m going to suggest we chop it down four hours at a time and see what happens. Twenty hours together, six hours of contact, then sixteen and four, then twelve and two. Then we can continue to cut it down from there and see what happens. And let’s do it at three day intervals, since it seems to take a while to build up in our system and then wear off.”

Derek nodded but then frowned. “Okay, but doing it like that means we’ll literally have to set an alarm in the middle of the night so one of us can throw the other out of bed.”

“It’s not a great solution, admittedly,” Stiles said, “but I think I’d rather do that than sleep separately and try to figure out how to spend six hours in physical contact during the day.”

Derek thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, okay. Sounds good.”

“At least we can go out in public now,” Stiles said. “Wanna hit the beach tomorrow? I’ve never surfed in my life. I’ll make a complete fool of myself; it’ll be fun.”

At that, Derek’s face cracked into a smile. “Sure.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	5. Chapter 5

 

The next week went about as smoothly as a week could when two people had found themselves suddenly magically induced to spend every moment together. With two hours free per day during their waking time, they could get some much-needed space from each other. Stiles insisted on getting Derek some real groceries so he could actually cook some food instead of ordering take-out. He set off the fire alarm twice.

He got a chance to actually meet Boyd and Erica, who seemed to be Derek’s only real friends despite the fact that they technically worked for him. Boyd had been his agent for eight years, and Erica was Boyd’s wife, who had declared herself Derek’s publicist in an act that seemed to have surprised him. Apparently, Stiles learned, Derek’s previous publicist had discouraged him from making the public statement about Kate Argent. When Boyd had found out, he had convinced Derek to fire her, and since he still sort of needed a publicist, Erica was filling the role. “She has a knack for it,” Boyd said, looking fondly at his wife, who flipped her hair and declared that damn right, she did.

The purchase of the new house was complete on day four. They went furniture shopping and had everything delivered and assembled. Two different paparazzi got pictures of them, and the news that Derek had purchased a bigger house and was now picking out furniture with Stiles sent the internet into a frenzy.

Stiles had to admit that he was somewhat enjoying watching everyone freak out. The general consensus of the internet, particularly of fandom, was that they were _perfect_ for each other. Lots of people had questions about what, if anything, this meant about the course their characters took during the movies. Most people agreed it was probably irrelevant, that their real-life relationship had nothing to do with whatever had happened between their characters.

They moved into the new house on day six. Stiles wasn’t loving being prodded awake by the alarm in the middle of the night and having to slog over to another bed, but at least now he _had_ another bed, instead of relocating to a sofa. And the house was so gorgeous that it was worth it. And he could sleep in now (using a precious hour of his separated time).

He came downstairs yawning to find Derek on the phone. “Uh huh . . . yeah, it sounds good. Okay, send it over. Thanks.”

Stiles poured himself a mug of coffee and said, sleepily, “’Sup?”

“Got an offer on one of those scripts I was reading,” Derek said.

“Oh, yeah, which one?”

“The one about the man on death row.”

“Nice!” Stiles said. “Oscar bait for sure, that one,” he added, and Derek flushed pink. “You want some breakfast?”

“Sure.” Derek cleared his throat and added, “It’s all being filmed at the studio, so we won’t have to worry about separation or anything. What about you, have you read anything you liked lately?”

“I’m holding out for a part in the new Star Wars movie,” Stiles said, and Derek gave him an incredulous look. “What? It could happen!”

Derek just shook his head a little. “I just can’t believe they’re making _another_ trilogy.”

“Well, you know that old Hollywood maxim,” Stiles said. “They’ll stop beating that dead horse when it stops spitting out money.”

Derek laughed so hard that he had to sit down, and Stiles spent the rest of the day ridiculously proud of himself.

By the time the second movie premiered, they had cut down their ‘necessary’ time together to six hours, and rather than sharing a bedroom, spent an hour on the sofa together in the evening, reading or watching TV. Stiles kind of missed sharing Derek’s bed, but didn’t dare bring it up. Everything was just too weird.

There were times that he was still deeply bitter and angry about the spell. Before it had happened, it had seemed like he and Derek were progressing towards a genuine friendship, something that might someday turn into a relationship. But then this had happened, and any pull they felt towards each other – they would always question whether or not it was their own free will. Even _he_ felt like that, despite knowing how much Derek meant to him and how much he had genuinely cared about him before the spell had been put on them.

It wasn’t like there was anything he could do to fix it, so he settled for being Derek’s friend and trying not to think about it too much. He didn’t know how Derek felt about it, and frankly he was too afraid to ask. It had only been a few weeks. The majority of post-production on the second movie had been completed while they were filming the third.

Of course, everyone was all over them at the premiere, wanting to ask a hundred questions about their relationship. “You say you’re keeping it casual, but you’re living together, isn’t that right?” one of the nosier reporters asked.

“Oh, sure, but have you seen that place?” was Stiles’ glib response. “We could spend a week there and never see each other and it wouldn’t be weird at all.”

“It still seems like a big step!”

“Well, I saw his apartment and couldn’t in good conscience leave him there,” Derek joked. “The cockroaches had formed an offensive.”

“Hey, now, they’ll take you seriously if you say that!” Stiles protested, laughing, and Derek beamed and kissed him on the cheek. The hearts of everyone in a one hundred foot radius spontaneously melted, including Stiles’.

The second movie was incredible. Stiles wanted to watch it a hundred times. He couldn’t believe how lucky he had been to snag the role, to be a part of something that was so amazing. He was in high spirits as they went back to Derek’s, looking through articles on his phone and relaying to Derek that they had made several ‘best dressed’ and ‘cutest couples’ lists.

When he woke up the next morning, he had a text from Lydia which read, ‘I’m e-mailing you something because if I call you, you’re going to scream in my ear. Call me when you’ve gotten it out of your system.’

Stiles pulled up the e-mail as he was pouring his coffee, and was still staring at it in numb, frozen amazement ten minutes later when Derek came in. He seemed to sense Stiles’ shock, and said, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, I just . . . I got it.” Stiles swallows hard. “The. The part. In Star Wars. Episode ten. They called Lydia this morning and said that they loved me so much in _Haven’s Hand_ that they had decided to skip the second set of auditions and offer it to me.”

“That’s awesome!” Derek says, with a huge smile that for once looks completely genuine. “Congratulations!”

“Yeah, but, but how can I take it?” Stiles stammers. “They’re filming half of it in Iceland and the other half in Croatia and then probably a third part somewhere else amazing and gorgeous and far away from you, the person I am magically bound to spend time with or drop dead.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” Derek said, as if this is obvious.

“But you’ve already accepted the role in Death Row!”

“Doesn’t matter,” Derek said, and seeing that Stiles was about to freak out, he gripped him firmly by the shoulders. “This is _way_ too big for you to pass up. Especially right now – turning down a major role like this wouldn’t be a good look, okay? Trust me, I know this business. You call Lydia right now, scream in her ear a bunch, and sign that contract before they change their minds. I’ll tell Boyd that they’re going to have to work my filming schedule around yours. It shouldn’t be a big deal – my part in the movie is important but it’s not _huge_. I can knock it out in a couple weeks if they let me do all my scenes at once. Okay?”

Stiles tried to stop hyperventilating. “Okay? Yeah, you’re sure? Okay, okay – I’m gonna be in motherfucking _Star Wars_ – ”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Two days later, Stiles was still bouncing off the walls. He couldn’t tell anyone, so he talked to Derek about it constantly, to the point where he was very sure Derek was considering strangling him. He had done an in-depth analysis of every Star Wars movie to date, and told Derek all about the parallels between the trios in the various movies and how he wasn’t sure exactly which role he was getting yet but he didn’t even care because all three roles would be equally awesome.

“What if they cast you as the voice of a droid?” Derek asked, clearly resorting to teasing out of self-defense. “Or one of those hooded aliens with weird voices?”

“They’re called Jawas, you philistine, and I was specifically in the running for one of the three main roles, so – ” Stiles’ phone rang. “So there,” he finished, and grabbed it, giving a quick glance at the screen. “Hey, Dad, what’s up?”

“Have you got a few days free?” Noah asked.

“Uh, sort of? I guess, yeah. Why?”

“Well, I might have been in a minor car accident and broken my ankle, and having you around for a week would – ”

“I’ll be on the next flight up,” Stiles interrupts, already on his feet.

“Stiles, calm down, I’m not seriously hurt – ”

“Yeah, okay, great, glad to hear it. I’ll be on the next flight up.” Stiles said goodbye and hung up, then looked at Derek and frowned. “Shit. Uh. Wanna go to my hometown and meet my dad?”

Derek looked like he’d rather be shot. “Does he know about the whole . . . thing?”

“No. I haven’t told anybody. As far as I know, your sisters, Lydia, and Deucalion are the only ones who know.” Stiles ran a hand through his spiked hair. “I don’t want to worry him, you know?”

“Okay, but does he know that we’re dating? Or fake-dating? Wouldn’t he have seen it in the news?”

“My dad doesn’t read that shit, are you kidding? He’s a fifty-year-old white dude who lives in Northern California and works as a county sheriff. He wouldn’t know what to do with TMZ if it bit him on the ass. And if he saw a tabloid at the grocery store or something he would assume it was a stupid rumor that they were touting as fact, since I hadn’t said anything to him.”

“What do you _want_ to tell him?” Derek asked. “I’m assuming he would think it was weird if you got a hotel room.”

“Yeah, I always stay with him.” Stiles scrubbed his hand through his hair again. “Shit. I mean, he wouldn’t make a big deal out of me dating a guy, but he’s gonna find it really weird that I didn’t tell him.”

“We could tell him we just started dating?”

“And that I decided to bring you back to Beacon Hills for a week for shits and giggles? No, he won’t buy that. It’s gonna have to be the truth.”

“If you’re sure,” Derek said. “It’s fine by me. We just have to make sure he doesn’t tell anyone, or else the studio will be pissed.”

They each pack a bag, and head to the airport. Stiles decided to rent a car in Sacramento rather than having someone pick him up, because it will be much easier that way. He texted his father when they left Sacramento to let him know he’d be there in about forty-five minutes. Derek was a few steps behind him as he jogged into the house, only to stop dead as everyone he knew leapt out from behind furniture and shouted, “Surprise!”

“Holy shit!” Stiles blurted out, seeing the ‘congratulations’ banner strung up across the room. “Holy shit, guys! What?!”

“Lydia called me about the role you got in Star Wars,” Noah said, getting Stiles in a bear hug. “The official announcement is being made tomorrow so she figured it was safe. I might have overreacted a little.”

“Star Wars, man!” Scott says, seizing Stiles for a hug of his own. “That is so amazing! I – oh my God you brought Derek Hale with you.”

“Uh, yeah, ‘cause I thought I was gonna be here for a week because someone lied to me about breaking their ankle – ”

“I didn’t lie,” Noah said mildly. “I did break my ankle last week. See?” He pulled the cuff of his pants up reveal the cast. “I just don’t need you to babysit me, the way I knew you would leap at the chance to do.”

Stiles made a face at his father and said, “Uh, so, everyone, this is Derek Hale. Who came with me. Obviously. Because reasons.”

“Are you two actually dating?” Kira asked, her eyes wide. “Oh my God! I saw it on Buzzfeed but I didn’t really believe it because you hadn’t, I don’t know, posted on Facebook about how you were the luckiest person on the planet – ”

“Wow, this is getting so awkward so fast,” Stiles said, hiding his face in his hands. “Okay, okay! I’m going to come clean! Everyone in this room swear a vow of secrecy right now. I will use magic to enforce this if I think you’re not serious.”

“Like you’re good enough with your magic to enforce a secrecy oath,” Scott said with a snort. “But okay. Cross my heart.”

Everyone in the room made the gesture, and then Stiles said, “So, uh, in the third movie, there’s a scene where Solomon and Benjamin get magically bound together.”

“Canon!” Kira shouted gleefully, then turned to Malia and said, “You owe me twenty dollars.”

Stiles talked louder to interrupt her. “The, uh, the problem is, they used a real binding spell in the movie, and they had a real priest perform it, and long story short, Derek and I kind of ended up stuck together until they can figure out how to undo it.”

“Holy shit,” Scott said, but it was clear he was trying not to laugh. “Sounds like pure torture.”

“You know what, it’s not actually funny,” Stiles said, his temper fraying, “and the fact that you’re reacting like that is half of why I didn’t tell you. Because the fact that we can’t be physically separated for more than twenty-four hours without starting to feel sick is fucking up _both_ of our careers, not to mention what would happen if either of us met someone we wanted to actually date instead of be accidentally married to, and that’s not even going into the fact that this has been one of the most intensely awkward experiences of my life – ”

“Sorry, man,” Scott said, wincing. “It’s just, you know. Derek Hale.”

“I’m standing right here,” Derek pointed out.

“Yes, it’s Derek Hale, and while he would definitely be in the top three people in the world I’d choose to accidentally be married to, that doesn’t change the fact that there are things about this which have really, really sucked.”

“Okay,” Noah interrupted at this. “Let’s just let it go for now, okay? Scott’s apologized, so let’s stop talking about it before things get even more awkward. It’s nice to meet you, Derek,” he added, extending a hand. “Noah Stilinski. Like a drink?”

“Nice to meet you,” Derek said, only a little begrudgingly. “I’ll take a beer if you’ve got any.”

Noah got them some drinks and Stiles’ feathers started to unruffle. They sat around for a while and he told them what he knew about the new Star Wars movie. Derek talked about the next movie he was going to be in, and they ate a metric truckload of pizza. A few hours later, the others left, so it was just Stiles, Derek, and Noah.

“So are you going to want to use the guest room?” Noah asked.

“No, I’ll just stay in Stiles’ room,” Derek said.

“Okay,” Noah said, with a blessed lack of commentary.

A few hours later, Stiles and Derek headed up to bed. Stiles was moody and silent, embarrassed over his outburst and hoping Derek didn’t ask any questions about it. It wasn’t like they hadn’t talked about how awkward it had been, or like Derek would have been surprised by any of it. But he felt like he’d been far too emotional about it, and didn’t want Derek asking questions about why.

“Hey,” Derek said, after they had crawled into bed, and Stiles cringed. “If it’s any consolation, you would have been in my top three, too.”

“Oh, yeah?” Stiles felt his cheeks turn pink. “That does help. Thanks.”

Derek hooked his foot around Stiles’ ankle, the way he always did, and despite everything, Stiles fell asleep with a smile on his face.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

After leaving Beacon Hills, Derek and Stiles decided to take a few days of actual vacation. It seemed silly, Stiles thought, but what the hell? They deserved it. It had been a hell of a long, weird couple of months.

Derek was originally from northern California, and he admitted somewhat reluctantly that he hadn’t been back since the death of his parents and two siblings. There were things about it that he had missed. So they took a couple days and drove up the coast, went to see the Redwoods and Glass Beach and generally behaved like tourists. They got recognized a few times, and squealed over a few times, but Stiles was always happy to sign autographs and take photos, and Derek was willing if not happy.

It was fun, but he was glad to get back to Los Angeles. He realized that for a long time, he had thought of Beacon Hills as home, and LA as a temporary arrangement. Now it felt like the opposite - like Beacon Hills was a fun place to visit but here, in LA with Derek, he was home.

The plane ride was better than the ones he was used to - Derek insisted flying first class, which was actually pretty reasonable for a werewolf. The more packed in he was with other people, the more their scents and heartbeats would overwhelm him. He normally flew on a private plane, he had told Stiles at the beginning of the trip, but that could be hard to arrange on the short notice.

“Oh, man, it’s good to be back,” Stiles said, dumping his bag on the floor inside. “I love this house. It’s just the most amazing house. If we get magically divorced, can I still live here as your cook and maid?”

“Your cooking is a lot better than your cleaning,” Derek said, rolling his eyes.

“Hey, I told you that my cleaning charms were only halfway decent at best, but you didn’t want to get a cleaning service, so that’s on you, buddy.”

“The pool is probably covered with leaves.”

Stiles gave a cry of fake indignation, then said, “Let’s find out - last one in’s a rotten egg!”

He bolted out the back, shucking off his shirt as he went and shimmying out of his pants when he reached the edge of the pool. He was already in the water floating on his back when Derek casually strolled up to the edge of the pool, still fully dressed. “You’re an idiot,” he said.

Stiles blew a raspberry at him. “And you’re a rotten egg.”

Derek shrugged, clearly not at all troubled by this assertion. He pulled his shirt over his head, and Stiles decided this was a good time to close his eyes so he wouldn’t be able to watch. They were undressed around each other often, at least to their underwear, although less so since they had stopped spending the nights together. But they didn’t usually watch each other undress, and Stiles didn’t think now was the time to start.

That was a mistake, though, which he realized the instant Derek cannon-balled next to his head, sending him underwater. He came back up spluttering and laughing. “You piece of shit!” he shouted, skimming his hand over the surface and sending water into Derek’s insufferably smug face. “Rude!”

Derek laughed, and God, his laugh was such a _beautiful_ sound; Stiles wanted to hear it for the rest of his life. Then he inhaled some of the water and coughed. “Serves you right!” Stiles told him, but then Derek was coughing harder and Stiles realized something was wrong. Within bare instants, Derek went from laughing at him to struggling to breathe, grabbing for the edge of the pool only to realize it was too far away.

“Whoa, hey!” Stiles shouted, getting an arm around Derek as he started to flounder. Derek was no lightweight, but Stiles was a lot stronger after all the training he’d done, and he towed Derek over to the edge of the pool and hauled him up onto the steps. He saw with shock and horror that Derek’s skin was starting to blister, and dragged him the rest of the way out. “What the fuck, hey, talk to me, Der.” He lightly slapped Derek’s cheek, and his eyelids fluttered but he didn’t respond other than a harsh grunt and another coughing spate. “Jesus, that’s gotta be wolfsbane, right? The, the blistering, the difficulty breathing, okay - I learned a spell on how to leech it out once but it was a long time ago so I’m gonna call 911 before I try it - ”

He scrambled for his pants and grabbed his cell phone, dashing inside to unlock the front door so they’d be able to get in. Fortunately, he was fairly sure that response time in this neighborhood was going to be great. Once they were on the way, he hurried back to Derek. He grabbed both of Derek’s hands in his and tried to focus, tried to reach for that spark he knew he had but somehow never managed to get a firm grip on. He visualized drawing the poison out of Derek and onto the surface of his skin where it could be wiped away.

His focus was so intense that the paramedics scared him half to death when they came running up. “Hey, you’ve gotten it started, good job,” one of them said, and Stiles blinked to see the water on Derek’s skin now glistening with a faint purple sheen. He let himself breathe again as they got an IV in Derek’s arm to help flush out the poison.

An hour later, he was sitting in the ritziest hospital waiting room he’d ever seen in his life. The doctor had reassured him that Derek wasn’t in critical danger; he would be sick for a few days but would make a full recovery. Stiles couldn’t help but chew on his lower lip while he waited, wanting to be able to see Derek and verify this with his own eyes.

“Mr. Stilinski,” a voice said, and a police officer sat down across from him. “Got a minute to talk about what happened?”

Stiles nodded. He relayed the facts in what he hoped was a calm, rational voice. The cop told him that they were doing some tests, although the doctors had confirmed Stiles’ suspicions that it was wolfsbane poisoning. He asked some questions about whether or not anyone else had access to the house, what sort of security they had. He wrote down everything Stiles said, and said he would be in touch.

“God, where are we going to sleep?” Stiles muttered to himself, because he didn’t think either of them would want to risk going back to the house until it had been thoroughly searched. If someone had been inside, who knew what else they might have done?

It turned out not to matter that night. The doctors decided to keep Derek overnight to monitor his heart rate and keep him on the saline drip. He was sleeping when Stiles got to his room, and the nurse confirmed that he’d been given a strong sedative to keep him comfortable while the wolfsbane wore off.

Stiles knew he would be chewing on it all night if he let himself. He glanced at his phone and saw that it was only about nine PM. Not too late. He dialed Lydia, who picked up in her usual crisp fashion. “Hey, do you have any scripts or anything I can read?”

“You literally just got the role of a lifetime,” Lydia said, “in your own words. What do you want scripts for?”

Stiles hunched his shoulders defensively even though she couldn’t see him. “Derek’s in the hospital. Somebody, I guess probably some crazy stalker broke in and put wolfsbane in the pool. He’s okay, I mean, he’s sedated right now and they’re going to keep him overnight to be safe, but . . . I don’t really want to go back to the house and I was looking for a way to distract myself.”

He half-expected Lydia to make fun of him, or maybe make some comment about whether or not he remembered that Derek wasn’t actually his husband. Instead, she said, “Do you want me to come down and stay with you?”

“God, would you?” Stiles said, the words bursting out of his mouth in a rush. “I’m gonna lose my marbles, you know how much I freakin’ hate hospitals, and I’m just gonna chew on what happened all night and I - ”

“I’ll be down in about an hour,” Lydia said. “Have you eaten?”

“No, we had only just gotten back, we were gonna go for a swim and then order, I guess.”

“Okay. I’ll bring something with me.”

“You’re the best, Lyds. I love you.”

“I know.” Lydia hung up before Stiles could geek out about her having made a Star Wars reference.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	6. Chapter 6

 

Waiting wasn’t so bad when he knew distraction was coming. He paced up and down the hallways and read a lot of informational posters, chatted with the staff and even signed a few autographs, although he didn’t let anyone take his picture. He didn’t know whether or not the police were going to make any of this public, and he didn’t want someone posting on Instagram that he was in the hospital with his injured not-husband.

Lydia came with a homemade BLT that he scarfed down while giving her details of what had happened between bites. She didn’t ask a lot of questions, although she did text a lot. When he asked who she was texting, she said she was making sure that Erica and Boyd had been notified, as this would undoubtedly be in the news the next day.

“I don’t know if the police want us giving out any information,” Stiles said.

“Yes, but people would have seen the ambulance arrive at your house - we can’t just say nothing.” Lydia gave him a look and said, “Erica Reyes is smart enough to check with the police before issuing a statement. I mean, it is her job to know how to handle public announcements.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Stiles tried to stop fidgeting, and devoted his attention back to his sandwich.

He dozed fitfully on and off during the night. Lydia didn’t seem to have any trouble staying up all night, and Stiles wondered vaguely if that was because she wasn’t wholly human. It was also possible that it was just because it was Lydia.

Early in the morning, around five AM, Derek started to stir. Stiles couldn’t help but edge closer and wrap his hand around Derek’s forearm, waiting for him to wake. Lydia went and got them both a coffee.

“Jesus,” Derek mumbled. “I feel like . . . worse than hungover. What happened?”

“Uh, we’re not entirely sure yet,” Stiles said. “I guess someone broke in and dumped a bunch of wolfsbane in the pool.”

Derek frowned, rubbing a hand over his face and then growling at the IV. “I remember jumping in, and then coughing, and my chest started to hurt . . . have . . . have you talked to the police?”

“Yeah, they were gonna check a bunch of things and then come talk to us today and get your statement,” Stiles said. He glanced up as a nurse came in. She checked Derek’s vitals and then said the doctor would be in shortly. Derek’s stomach rumbled while they were waiting, and he got annoyed with Stiles when Stiles wouldn’t get him something to drink.

Once the doctor had checked him over, he downed an entire liter of cold water. The doctor said that since his vitals were stable, they should have him discharged within an hour or so. “It’ll be too early to go back to the house,” Stiles said, as Derek was signing papers. “It’ll still be a crime scene. I guess we don’t dare go out to breakfast, huh.”

“You don’t still have your apartment, do you,” Derek said.

“Oh, yeah, I actually do. Good thought! We can crash there for a couple days and - why are you looking at me funny?”

“If you still have your apartment, why did you sleep here?”

“‘Cause you were here, duh,” Stiles said, because he absolutely was not up to a discussion about this. Derek frowned at him for a moment, but then went back to his papers. Lydia drove them back to Stiles’ apartment, stopping at a drive-through for breakfast along the way. “Hey, my anti-dust spells worked pretty well!” Stiles said, pleased with himself. “I came through and cast a bunch of preservation spells after we could, you know, not spend every single moment together without dying. But I didn’t actually expect them to work.”

“You’re not as bad at your magic as you think,” Derek said, and when Stiles scoffed, he said, “Well, you must have used it yesterday, right? There’s no way I’d be back on my feet already after full body wolfsbane exposure if you hadn’t done a leeching spell right away. I’d have been in the hospital for a week while all my skin sloughed off and grew back.”

“Gross,” Stiles said, “but yeah, okay, I guess that’s something I did. I just have trouble focusing, you know?”

Derek shook his head. “You can focus when you want to. You’re actually almost _too good_ at focusing when you want to. Hyper-focus - part of ADD, right? You do that on set all the time. But somewhere along the way, someone lectured you on how your focus wasn’t good enough for magic and how magic is all about focus, so you subconsciously shut yourself down every time you try to do it.”

“Oh, uh,” Stiles said, gaping at him. “I guess maybe? I’d never thought about it that way. I had magic lessons when I was pretty young and granted, that was before I was on the better ADD medication, I was on Ritalin back then and it actually turned me into sort of a mess. So maybe I should try lessons again. You know. In my copious free time.”

Derek gave a quiet snort at that. They sat down and ate breakfast together. Derek’s skin was still tender, and he didn’t want to eat on the tiny patio - in all fairness, it was so tiny that Stiles wasn’t sure it would have room for them both, and he certainly didn’t have any patio furniture. Then they sat down for a movie. Stiles dozed off for a bit, cuddled up against Derek’s shoulder, waking when his phone rang.

He saw it was a local number, and picked up a little warily, but it turned out to be an LAPD detective who wanted to interview them both. Derek didn’t really want to leave the apartment, so Stiles gave the detective his address and he said he would be over shortly.

“So here’s what we know,” he said, as the three of them sat down at Stiles’ kitchen table. The only thing there that was still good was coffee, and he had made a pot. “Whoever broke in used two different spells. One to break the electronic lockbox on your side gate, and then another to obscure themselves from the cameras. Those two spells had different signatures.”

“What does that mean?” Derek asked, his shoulders tight and wary.

“It means they hired out,” Stiles said. “Bought two different spells to bring with them.”

The detective was nodding. “It probably means they don’t have any magic of their own, although that’s not a sure bet - most mages know we can track a signature so he or she might have just avoided using their own magic for that reason. Secondly, the magic was a couple days old. Whoever it was didn’t know your schedule, they didn’t plant the trap specifically for when you got back. They might not have even known you were out of town. The security cameras caught a blur, and it was done during the middle of the day - a time when you would have been working on a normal day.”

“So we don’t have anything to track them with?”

“Not yet,” the detective said. “Have you gotten any unusual correspondence, any threatening messages?”

“I get the occasional letter from a fan that’s edging close to stalker territory, but nothing that stands out. You can talk to my publicist, Erica, she’ll have all that stuff.”

“Okay. In the meantime, you should be okay to go home. We had some magic-sniffing dogs in this morning and they confirmed that the perpetrator didn’t go into the house, only the backyard. So you should be safe enough. It looks like you don’t have any magical protections on your property, however, and I would recommend you add some.”

“Yeah,” Derek said, nodding. “Okay.”

The detective gave them his card and took Erica’s information, then said he would be in touch. Stiles showed him out, then said, “So you wanna head back to your place?”

“I guess,” Derek said. “Maybe you could do some magical protections.”

Stiles laughed. “Hah! No.”

“We literally just talked about - ”

“Look, maybe I’m not half bad at magic, but I am not a professional. You want me to know I can do pretty good preservation spells and a nice healing charm when the chips are down, great. I appreciate it. But when it comes to our safety, I think I’d rather put this in the hands of someone who actually knows what they’re doing.”

“I’d rather put it in the hands of somebody I trust,” Derek said. “That’s you.”

Stiles had to forcibly squelch the warm feelings that bloomed in his stomach. “I’ll try to learn, okay? So I can do my own. But until I’ve done that, let’s go the professional route. Lydia has magical protections on her place - otherwise she’d go nuts every time someone within a two block radius died - so she can recommend somebody.”

After a moment, Derek nodded and accepted the compromise. “Okay.” He half-stood but then sank back onto the sofa. “Ugh. Still a little wobbly. Might as well finish the movie.”

“Okay,” Stiles said, picking up the remote.

“Why did you keep this place, anyway?” Derek asked abruptly.

Stiles fumbled and dropped the remote on the floor. “Well, you know. Who knows what’s going to happen? All joking about me being your cook and your maid aside, I didn’t really think you were going to play landlord to me forever.”

Derek blinked at him, then looked away. “I guess I had sort of . . . I didn’t really think they were going to fix it. I mean. We haven’t heard from Deucalion in weeks, and what does he care, really? It’s not his problem.”

“Okay, granted, but I don’t think we should just, just resign ourselves to being stuck like this,” Stiles said. He saw Derek’s face close off and winced. “Not that I feel stuck! It’s just, you know, it’s complicated . . .” He forced himself to stop talking before he could say what he was thinking, because from the way Derek was looking at him, he had this weird idea that Derek actually wanted to be with him. But he didn’t. He might even _think_ he did, the spell might have convinced him, but he was Derek fucking Hale and no way did he actually want to be with Stiles.

“Yeah,” was all Derek said, after a long pause.

Desperate to fill the gaping, uncomfortable silence, Stiles continued, “So I’ll just keep the apartment for now and we’ll see what happens. I mean, it’s not like I can’t afford it, since I got a boatload of money for the Haven trilogy, and God only knows what they’ll pay me to be in Star Wars, I didn’t even _read_ that contract after Lydia said it was okay, I would have paid _them_ to be in that movie so it seemed a little irrelevant - ”

Derek huffed out a quiet, annoyed noise. “Shut up and put the movie back on.”

“Uh, yeah, right, okay,” Stiles said, and grabbed the remote.

Any residual awkwardness went away when they got back to the house, replaced by the uncomfortable anxiety over the fact that someone had been in their home while they were gone. It was a weird feeling, one which Stiles hated immediately, as they stood in the kitchen, trying to pretend that everything was normal and they weren’t both waiting for a wolfsbane-laced booby trap to pop out of the pantry.

“Okay, I’m just gonna say it,” Stiles said. “Let’s stick together and check every closet, under every bed, in every nook and cranny. I’m not going to be able to sleep here unless we do, magic sniffing dogs aside.”

Derek’s shoulders relaxed slightly and he nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

They searched the house from top to bottom. Nothing seemed out of place. Derek didn’t detect any unusual smells, and neither of them saw or heard anything. All the windows were still closed and locked, and the house’s security system hadn’t been tampered with.

“You know what’s weird, though,” Stiles said, after they agreed that there were alone. “I mean, I know the police think it’s some stalker, and that’s the obvious explanation, but it’s not the sort of thing a stalker would do. Stalkers are, are _personal_. They wouldn’t plant a trap and then get out of dodge. A stalker would lie in wait and then throw wolfsbane powder in your face or something - ”

“Thanks for that reassuring thought - ”

“Because they’d want to _see_ you, to have access to, uh, to your person.” Stiles rubbed a hand over the back of his head. “But I guess stranger things have happened. Jodie Foster’s stalker decided to kill the president, so maybe some people are just weird.”

Derek gave a snort. “I agree with that one hundred percent.”

  
  
~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles was drinking coffee on their beautiful, beautiful patio a few days later when he got a text from Lydia that read, ‘Go to RT. You’ll enjoy it.’

A little puzzled by this, since he didn’t have any movies coming out, which was why he usually went to Rotten Tomatoes, Stiles nonetheless pulled the site up. A minute later, he was laughing so hard that Derek came out to see what he was reading.

“You may not find it quite as funny as I do, since I’m not sure exactly how you feel about this sort of thing, but the Top Gun reboot got _panned_ ,” Stiles said, and to his satisfaction, a little smirk bloomed on Derek’s face. “Bombed at the box office, with that sharp drop between Friday and Sunday that you _know_ means everyone was tweeting about how terrible it is.”

“Nice,” Derek said, sitting down with his own mug.

“Kate’s performance has had some especially choice words,” Stiles continued brightly. “Let’s see . . . ‘consistently appalling’ . . . ‘completely unbelievable in the role’ . . . ‘the movie’s only tolerable moments are when she’s offscreen’ . . . and my personal favorite, ‘it’s a wonder that nobody rigged her jet to eject her over the Pacific Ocean’.”

Derek gave a snort into his coffee. “Is that a comment on her acting or the character she’s playing?”

“Both, I think,” Stiles said. “Maybe we should go hate watch it? No, we don’t want them to have the money. I know, I’ll download a pirated copy.”

“You do that,” Derek said, amused.

The police investigation of the attempt on Derek’s life went absolutely nowhere. The spells were garden variety and could have been bought at any magic shop in the city. The wolfsbane was an ordinary strain, not exactly easy to come by, but found on plenty of sites on the dark web.

Lydia was happy to recommend a mage to do some protective spells on the property. Stiles got a few ‘magic for dummies’ books and started trying to do some of his own. He wound up getting enthralled by all the spells he could potentially learn to do, and spent more time on that than other things he should have been doing.

“Okay, but, listen to this,” he said to Derek, who was attempting to read. “I could do spells to _see in the dark_. Or communicate with animals! Like, they can’t _talk_ , but you can learn to read their mood and stuff. Plus spells to conjure items. No more lost TV remotes!”

“You talk like these spells are all new and nobody had ever told you about their existence before,” Derek remarked.

“Dude, you do not know how stuffy and boring my magic teacher was back when I was eight. My mom knew some hearth craft, right? Like she used her magic to boil water faster and lift the sofa so she could vacuum underneath it. My dad doesn’t have any magic at all. So when I was eight and like ‘can I do exciting stuff with magic?’ my teacher was just like ‘not with the way you do it’ and . . .”

Derek looked up at this, then shook his head. “It’s no wonder you never tried to learn it again.”

“Yeah. But now I’m gonna learn to _accio_ and never lose my keys again!”

The protection spells weren’t quite as easy as finding his keys and lost TV remotes. He burned a bunch of sage and lit some white candles and focused on keeping them safe and detecting ill intent. He had no real idea of whether or not it worked, but at least he got it done before they were leaving.

As much as he loved the house, it was a relief to get out of the city and head to Iceland for the first part of the filming. If Derek had a stalker, he or she probably wouldn’t follow them there. And of course, nothing could dampen his enthusiasm for the fact that he was working on an _actual Star Wars movie_.

It certainly came with some interesting coworkers. The director was a man named Finstock, a Hollywood legend. Everyone Stiles knew said he was either the best or worst director they had ever worked with. He was the strangest person Stiles had ever met, full of off-the-wall energy, bizarre insults, and an eye for talent that was practically unrivaled.

His two costars were equally interesting. Danny Mahealani was a center of calm in the frenetic business and frequently looked at Stiles like he couldn’t quite believe they were of the same species. Braeden, meanwhile, was brisk and arrogant and off-putting, and while Stiles supposed she had earned the right to some arrogance, he hated her immediately.

But it was still Star Wars, and at the end of the day he still went back to a gorgeous werewolf who seemed to actually like him sometimes, so he couldn’t really ask for more out of life than that.

Derek clearly much preferred Iceland to Los Angeles, to the point that he was starting to look like a native. He wore thick, chunky sweaters and grew out his beard, which was a real agony to Stiles, who constantly wanted to rub his face on it. Rather than getting an apartment in the town that was forty-five minutes from set, they rented a cabin from some locals. Stiles was starting to think Derek was going to offer to buy it at the end of production, get some sheep, and give up movie making entirely.

“It’s not that the house in LA isn’t nice,” Derek said, “or that I don’t love acting, because I do. It’s just . . . the wolf in me sometimes gets restless, you know?”

“I can dig it,” Stiles said. “This is definitely a much more suitable environment for a wolf. Maybe we should get a summer home here.”

He realized a moment too late that he probably shouldn’t have said that, because it gave such a _permanence_ to this weird relationship they had. But all Derek said was, “Yeah, maybe we should.”

They stayed in Iceland three months, then headed to Croatia for another month, and finally to the last part of filming, which was being done in Costa Rica. It was summer there, so Derek spent a lot of time shirtless and Stiles spent a lot of time trying not to look at Derek shirtless.

They were about halfway through their mandatory evening cuddle when Derek’s phone rang. He glanced down at it, then frowned slightly before grabbing the remote and pausing their movie. “It’s Boyd,” he said, then swiped the screen. “Hey, what’s up?”

Stiles watched as Derek’s frown turned into an expressionless mask. Cuddled up the way they were, he could feel Derek’s heart rate speed up, and he gave him a questioning look but managed not to say anything.

“Okay,” Derek finally said. “Yeah. That’s . . . fine, I guess. I - ” He went silent again. “I know, Boyd, but - ” Another long silence. “Okay. Yeah, I’ll work it out. Tell him I’ll be there. Thanks.”

He hung up, and Stiles made a strangled noise between his teeth as he fought against demanding answers. Derek gave him one of those arched-eyebrow looks, and Stiles snapped, “Well?!”

“I could say it was none of your business, you know,” Derek said, and Stiles bit his lip to keep from saying anything. Fortunately for his sanity, Derek didn’t continue to toy with his emotions. “Death Row is changing directors. Creative differences. The new director is going to be Alexander Argent, Kate’s uncle. Needless to say, he doesn’t want to work with me, and I don’t want to work with him.”

“Oh, geez,” Stiles said, wincing. “That sucks! Isn’t there a contract?”

“Sure, but actors and productions part ways all the way and voluntarily release each other from contracts.” Derek saw Stiles open his mouth and said, “It was a good part, but I’m not going to cry over losing it. I’d rather not have to work with an Argent anyway.”

“Still,” Stiles said, feeling grumpy.

“Anyway, Boyd’s been a little worried about how much time I’ve been taking off. Not your fault,” Derek added, before Stiles could say anything. “I didn’t mind the break. But he’s concerned that people are going to forget about me. The memory of the public is very short. And yes, successful actors have made comebacks after years off screen. He just wanted to voice his concern and tell me that he had a part for me, if I wanted it, and he thought I should take it.”

“What is it?” Stiles asked.

“I don’t know the character, actually. It’s for the new Deadpool movie.”

“Oh, dude!” Stiles cried out, overjoyed. “You’re gonna be in a Deadpool movie?”

Derek couldn’t help but smile. “Apparently one of the actors made some racist or sexist comment to one of the other actors, and Ryan Reynolds fired him on the spot. But they’re still supposed to be, you know, filming. Right now. So Boyd said if I could make it on set by noon tomorrow, the role’s mine. You know, whatever it is.”

“Who cares what it is? It’s in Deadpool!”

“That’s exactly why I care what it is. I could be playing the voice of his left nut.”

Stiles laughed near hysterically, sprawling out across Derek’s lap. He saw Derek’s smirk, how proud he was of himself for the crude remark, and ended up laughing harder. When he finally managed to calm down, he said, “How long will they need you?”

“A couple weeks, Boyd said.” Derek’s smirk faded back into his usual frown. “I don’t know how we’re going to handle that. It’s filming in LA.”

“We’ll make it work,” Stiles said. He saw the skeptical look on Derek’s face and said, “We’ll have to, huh? We can’t just take turns getting roles for the next . . . however long. We both have to take roles as they come; we both have to do what’s best for our careers. It wouldn’t be fair for either of us to have to give up. And given the way the filming industry works, we can’t predict when those roles are going to turn up or when exactly the studio will need us.”

“You’re not wrong, it’s just . . .” Derek sighed. “I remember feeling really awful. How can either of us film like that?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. But I think we’re going to have to try to figure it out. We might just have to wrack up a hell of a lot of frequent flyer miles.”

Derek sighed again, and nodded. “At least you’re not filming in Croatia anymore. That would have been even harder to pull off.”

Derek received a text a few minutes later from Boyd, saying he’d gotten him a ticket on a red-eye back to Los Angeles. He and Stiles stayed in physical contact until the last possible minute – “pre-emptive snuggling”, Stiles called it – before he finally left.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	7. Chapter 7

 

 Stiles didn’t sleep well the night Derek left, something he definitely was not going to admit to Derek. He’d gotten used to Derek being there, even though they probably didn’t really need to spend every night together. He was glad that the next day wasn’t particularly labor intensive, as they filmed one of the quieter scenes and he was sitting down for most of it. It helped that one of his costars was late to set and they had to wait for her. All in all, not too bad. Derek texted him a couple times, first to let him know that he’d gotten to LA safely, and then during the day to say he was on set and the role was not, in fact, as anyone’s testicle.

 “Wow, look at you,” one of the makeup guys said, when he saw Stiles beaming at his phone. “I hope my wife still smiles like that when she gets texts from me.”

It was a little ridiculous, Stiles thought, but he really was that glad that Derek was texting him. They weren’t being forced to spend time together, it had nothing to do with a magic spell, but Derek was still taking a few minutes out of what had to be a busy and chaotic day to check in with him. In fact, when he got back to his trailer that night, he had another text that said, ‘How are you feeling?’

 ‘A-okay,’ Stiles replied. ‘It took maybe three or four days to start feeling it last time. Hopefully by then, one of us will have a break from filming.’

 They didn’t work twenty-four-seven, after all. Three days later, he did get a day off. But it was only a day, so not quite enough time for a visit. When Derek got one a few days later, he did come down, but he had to be back in Los Angeles the next day, and Stiles was on set most of the day so they didn’t get a lot of time to spend together.

He was feeling a little rough by the next day. He reminded himself that there was nothing physically wrong with him. He just had to tough it out, that was all. But by the end of the day, he was exhausted. He forgot to eat dinner, collapsed into bed, and slept for fifteen hours straight.

 It went on like that for about two weeks. When one of them got a break, they would come to see the other, but between the travel time and the fact that one of them would always be working when the other came to visit, it wasn’t anywhere near enough time as they wanted. As they needed, Stiles had to admit to himself. He sure as hell wasn’t about to admit it to Derek. It seemed like his lycanthropy shielded him from some of the effects, as his healing tried to keep up with the theoretical damage that spell was doing. He had dark circles under his eyes on a couple occasions, but never seemed as draggy and pathetic as Stiles felt.

 He hid it to the best of his ability, because it wasn’t fair to make Derek give up his career because of this stupid curse. And frankly, the idea that Derek would end up resenting him scared the living shit out of him. There was no way he was going to ask Derek to do that.

 If he could make it through Star Wars, the literal role of a lifetime, the role he had been born to play (in his personal opinion), then he might have to think about whether or not he wanted to try to continue acting. Maybe he could try to get a role on a TV show, which would have a steadier shooting schedule and wouldn’t result in him bouncing around the globe. That was something he needed to think about – when he could think again. There was also the possibility that, once the third movie in the Haven trilogy was released, they could talk publicly about what had happened. Then people would at least understand why they couldn’t both film at the same time.

There were only three weeks of shooting left, if all went according to schedule. He could make it that long. He just had to suck it up, that was all.

“So here’s how it works,” Finstock said, as the crew got Stiles hooked into the safety harness. “You’re just stepping from one vehicle to the other. You start here - ” He stepped up onto the back of the motorcycle - it would be flying once the effects were done, but for the time being it looked like a fairly normal motorcycle, just with a platform on the back. “You step up - grab the handle on the car here - and then step up with the other foot. Easy peasy. Got it?”

“Step, grab, step,” Stiles said with a nod. “Easy peasy.”

“If you miss a step or if it’s too far for you to reach, the harness will just pull you up above the car so you won’t fall. Okay?”

“Sounds good,” Stiles said. It sounded terrible. The idea of a simple three-step stunt had him wanting to cry, but he was determined not to betray his exhaustion to anyone. At least he had the harness, so if he screwed it up, he wouldn’t die. He got up on the platform on the back of the bike, putting his feet in the grooves so he wouldn’t lose his balance when it started moving.

“Okay, action!”

The bike roared to life and Stiles would have fallen if it weren’t for the harness. The car was a little ways behind him, so he waited until it got close enough, and then - step, grab, step - he lifted himself up onto it.

“Cut!” Finstock shouted. “Okay, good job on the action, Stilinski, but it’s supposed to look effortless, remember? You looked like you were doing a calculus test.”

“Sorry,” Stiles said.

“One more time, places!”

Step, grab, step.

“Okay, better, one more time, places!”

Step, grab, step.

“Not your fault, the God damned light malfunctioned - one more time, places!”

Step, grab, step.

“Grab it with one hand, not both! You’re not someone’s grandma - one more time, places!”

Grab, step -

He realized a split second too late that he’d messed up. That he was thinking too hard about grabbing the car’s handle and had forgotten about the crucial first step, which anchored him to pull himself across. He dangled for what seemed like an eternity before the movement of the car yanked him across the gap. He lost his grip on the handle and fell hard to the ground. Pain shot through every joint, especially his face, and he was dragged for several feet before the car stopped moving. There were a lot of people shouting, but before he could reassure them, he passed out.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles woke up feeling weirdly good. He could only vaguely remember what had happened, and hadn’t expected to feel good. He supposed he was probably doped up to the gills, but then realized that was only part of it. Derek was there, sitting in the chair next to his bed, his fingers idly combing through Stiles’ hair. “The fuh,” Stiles mumbled, trying to regain his bearings. How long had he been unconscious?

“Hey!” Derek jolted a little, his fingers tugging at Stiles’ hair before relaxing. “How are you feeling?”

“Foggy,” Stiles said. “Where’m I?”

“The hospital, dumb ass,” Derek said. “Your harness broke and you took a nasty spill. Are you in any pain?”

“I don’ think so,” Stiles said. He saw Derek start to stand and managed, “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m just getting the call button, Stiles,” Derek said, surprisingly not making any comment on Stiles demanding his company. “I want to let the doctor know you’re awake.”

Stiles nodded, and for the first time, felt pain flare up in his cheek. He groaned a little, and Derek squeezed his hand. “Am I broken?” he asked.

“Parts of you, yes,” Derek said. “You have an orbital fracture in your face, a dislocated shoulder, and a broken wrist. Your dad’s on a flight down, by the way. Lydia called both of us as soon as she found out, but your dad was tied up in some investigation. Since you weren’t seriously injured, he needed to wrap things up first.”

“Mmkay.” Stiles looked up somewhat hazily as the nurse came in to check his vitals. The doctor came in not long afterwards, saying that it looked like Stiles would be fine, that he had a concussion and they were going to keep him overnight just to be safe. By the time he left, Stiles’ pain was starting to get worse. The nurse gave him a painkiller and told him she would be back to check on him soon.

“What’s wrong?” Derek asked, leaning over him.

Stiles realized, to his horror, that tears had started down his face. “They’re gonna fire me, aren’t they? They’re gonna fire me and reshoot everything without me or, or just CGI my face or something – ”

“Hey, relax,” Derek said. “They’re not going to fire you.”

“But I broke my face, what if I need surgery, what if I look awful now – ”

“Okay, take a deep breath,” Derek said, squeezing his hand. “For one thing, Mark Hamill got in a huge car accident between The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi and it changed his face, didn’t it? But they didn’t replace him. Secondly, the doctor said you were gonna be fine, just take a week or two to rest up. And thirdly, it wasn’t your fault.”

“It was, though, I messed up the stunt – ”

“Actors mess up stunts all the time! You think I’ve never misstepped or forgotten how to turn or something? It’s their job to have safety precautions in place so you don’t end up in the hospital when that happens, and they biffed it. That’s not your fault. Okay?”

Stiles managed a snuffling agreement. Then, for the first time, Derek’s presence really set in. “Wait, how are you here?”

“I told you. Lydia called me.”

“Yeah, but you were filming in LA . . .”

Derek rolled his eyes. “And as soon as I said ‘my boyfriend was injured on set and he’s in the hospital and I need a couple days off’, they said ‘okay’ and then I flew here.”

“That’s okay? You’re not going to get in trouble?”

“They can live without me for a few days.” Derek saw the look on Stiles’ face and sighed. “Look, everything’s going to be okay. Just take it easy.”

Stiles whined a little, but the painkillers were really kicking in, so he surrendered to them. He drifted in and out for a while, waking up when his father arrived but only able to greet him with a mumble. He did wake up for food, which he was still eating when Finstock came in. “Hey, how you doin’, buddy?”

“I guess okay,” Stiles said. “I’m sor – ”

Derek stood up and faced Finstock head on, interrupting Stiles to say, “He’s going to need a couple weeks to recover.”

“Sure, yeah,” Finstock said. “Figured. We’ll work it out. We’ll shoot some scenes that don’t have you in them, and then there’s one that you’re there but you don’t have any lines, so we’ll just use some cut footage and add you in post. Already got a stunt actor to do that scene we were filming yesterday so you won’t have to do it again. It’s all taken care of, boys.”

“Good,” Derek said.

Finstock talked a little longer – altogether too long – mostly about what he had said to the team that had set up the stunt and how he had raked them over the coals. After what seemed like a small eternity to Stiles, he left. By the time he was gone, Derek had already gotten them a flight back to Los Angeles. “That way you can recuperate down there and it won’t be a big deal.”

“Okay,” Stiles said, because he was too worn out to argue, and the idea of spending the next two weeks in Derek’s lap sounded incredibly appealing.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles had been injured a few times in his life, generally due to his klutziness, and he had to admit that it was nice to recuperate in style. His father had offered to come down to Los Angeles for a week or two, but Stiles had told him that he was fine. He didn’t really want anyone to see him moping around, and he knew his father would notice before anyone else did.

It was stupid to be this upset, he told himself. It was just an accident. He would recover and he would be fine. They would work out the future. The best thing to do, in his personal opinion, was just to wait until the third Haven movie had premiered, whereupon they could tell everyone the truth and just take turns taking roles.

But what if Derek didn’t want to do that? What if he didn’t want people to know the truth because then everyone would know he was stuck with Stiles? What if they never found a way to undo it?

He was pushing his food around on his plate a few days after getting back to Los Angeles when Derek sat down across from him with a frown and said, abruptly, “Why didn’t you tell me how awful you felt?”

“What?” Stiles asked, looking at him and then nervously away.

“I talked to Lydia. She said you’d been feeling sicker the longer we were separated but you were trying to push through it. You should have told me. I could have – ”

“Could have what?” Stiles interrupted. “Told the studio to fuck off because you had to babysit me? Told Ryan Reynolds ‘oops, sorry, I won’t be able to take this role after all’? Could have what, Derek? Given up your entire career for me? How could I have asked you to do that?”

“So instead you what, kept trying to work twelve hour days when you were exhausted, doing dangerous stunts when you weren’t capable?”

“Yes! Now do you see why I was so convinced that my injury was my own fault?”

“None of this is your fault, Stiles!” Derek shouted, exasperated. “Why do you keep acting like it is?”

“I don’t – ”

“Yes, you do! You keep talking about how you don’t want to make me give things up for you, how you can’t ask me to do that, you can’t make me give up my career – but it wasn’t your choice for this to happen any more than it was mine! We, we just have to deal with it and decide things together – ”

“But it isn’t fair to you,” Stiles said.

“It isn’t fair to either of us.”

“I know, but – ” Stiles nearly choked on the words. “But at least I get to be married to you, the amazing man of my dreams. You have to be married to _me_ , which doesn’t seem like a fair trade at all.”

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh boy.”

“And, and it’s so unfair because there was this tiny part of me that honestly thought maybe we might have some sort of relationship someday. I mean, you seemed to actually tolerate me better than most people do, and better than you tolerated most other people, so – ” Stiles saw Derek’s mouth tighten and wondered if he should stop talking, but the words were just flooding out of him. “But now it doesn’t matter, because even if you do like me, it won’t matter, because we’ll never know if it’s because of the spell. Like, you might _think_ you want to be with me, but we won’t know if it’s actually _you_ thinking that or if it’s the spell _telling_ you that you think that, and, and it’s so unfair. Because I, I would have wanted this more than anything, this life with you, and now I can never have it, not _really_ , and I want to just find every person involved in this travesty and nail them in the nuts as hard as I can – ”

“Stop talking,” Derek said, and Stiles trailed into miserable silence. Derek took a deep breath. “Okay. Had it ever occurred to you that I feel the exact same way?”

Stiles blinked. “What? No. What?”

“Do you know how many people I told I was gay before you? None. Zero. My sisters were the only people who knew. Do you know how many times I went out for a drink with a costar? Zero.”

Stiles just stared at him with his mouth ajar. “This, this conversation went somewhere very unexpected,” he managed, “but it doesn’t change my point. That we’ll never really know if we want to be together.”

“Okay,” Derek said slowly. “That’s a fair point. But it’s something we both have to live with. Which means that we are on even footing, so when it comes to our careers, we have to try to be on even footing there, too. Can you agree on that?”

“I guess,” Stiles said.

“So I’ll finish filming Deadpool while you recover, and then you’ll finish filming Star Wars while I’m between projects, and then we’ll take some time off until the third movie comes out. Once that happens, we don’t have to worry about spoiling anything, so we can tell the studios and everyone what happened, and they’ll just have to be okay with the fact that we have to take turns filming.”

“Okay,” Stiles said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He cleared his throat and added, “I was thinking of maybe trying out TV. Don’t make that face!” he added, as Derek grimaced. “I’m not doing it as a step down in my career. I mean, plenty of really good actors have had main roles on TV shows.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Derek said, and shrugged. “I feel a little biased against TV, to be honest. I think . . . I think Kate ruined it for me, to be honest. The idea of showing up and working with the same people all the time, with no easy way out if things don’t go well, makes me shudder.”

“That sucks,” Stiles said. “I think I could get into it, though. A little structure is never a bad thing for me.”

“Fair enough.” Derek let out a breath. “We’ll work it out, okay? But stop feeling like you have to shoulder all of it yourself. This wasn’t your fault, and we’re in it together. Literally.”

“Okay,” Stiles said.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles was halfway through trying to use his magic to make a grilled cheese, since he could only use one arm and Derek was on set for the day, when his phone rang. He had to juggle several things and nearly dropped all of it before he got to the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, how’s the arm? How’s the shoulder?” Finstock didn’t wait for a reply before he continued, “Can you come down to my office today? We need to finish the accident report and lawyer bullshit, work comp, blah blah et cetera blah.”

“Sure,” Stiles said, although he was frowning. He thought all of that had already been done. But he didn’t feel comfortable asking questions about it, at least not over the phone. “Might take me a bit, though; I’ll have to call an Uber.”

“Don’t be stupid, I’ll send someone over to pick you up. 10880 Malibu Point, right?” Finstock said, and then hung up before Stiles could ask if he was making a joke or if he thought Iron Man was real and Stiles was Tony Stark.

Apparently it was the former, because the car showed up twenty minutes later. Stiles had given up on his lunch by then, and struggled through getting dressed in a button down shirt and slacks. He went up to Finstock’s offices and looked somewhat nervously at the other man who was there, a sour-faced man in a suit who just screamed ‘attorney’.

“So here’s the deal,” Finstock said, without a hello. “The stunt coordinator is throwing a tantrum saying it can’t have been his fault, he double-checked all the equipment and it all worked fine so if something went wrong, it can’t be blamed on him.”

“Okay,” Stiles said, unsure of where Finstock was going with this.

“This is a problem because this whole cock-up is gonna cost the studio tens of thousands of dollars in lost time, medical bills, insurance hikes,” Finstock waved a hand, “so they’ve gotta know who to pin the bill on.”

“Okay,” Stiles said again, his throat tight with anxiety, because he was fairly sure fingers were about to be pointed at him.

Instead, what Finstock said was, “So the stunt guy is saying if the gear didn’t work, it’s because someone sabotaged it, and he thinks it was the studio’s fault for providing lax security. So this guy – Hairball or whatever – ”

“Harris,” the sour-faced man corrected, sourly.

“ – is going to ask you some questions about what happened that day, whether or not anything out of the ordinary happened, if you saw anybody you didn’t know, you know, that whole thing.”

“Okay, uh,” Stiles said, not sure if he felt better or worse. “I don’t know why someone would have been trying to sabotage me, but . . .”

“Oh, it’s not about you, chucklehead,” Finstock said. “It’s fucking Star Wars. The fans for this series are insane. Someone’s probably still upset about something that happened in the Phantom Menace. Or it could have been some white supremacist douchebag who’s upset that we cast a black woman in the lead role. I mean, have you seen the shit Braeden’s had to put up with? I don’t think she’s ever going to go on the internet again.”

“Oh,” Stiles said. That made a surprising amount of sense to him – altogether too much sense, really. “Do you think it was sabotage?”

“Me? What? No.” Finstock scoffed. “I think what’s-his-nuts didn’t do his God damned job and doesn’t want to foot the bill. But we’ve gotta say we did our due diligence and looked into it. The lawyers will hash it out from there.”

Stiles nodded and turned his attention to Harris. He pushed his glasses up onto his nose and asked a hundred questions about what had happened that day, what sort of security Stiles had had to go through to get on set, who he had talked to, what the set up for the stunt had been like. He was so thorough that Stiles had to answer at least a quarter of his questions with ‘I don’t remember’, which annoyed him.

When he was finally finished, he decided to grab lunch and go visit Derek. He wasn’t exactly right next door, but the studios weren’t too far away. Maybe he could get a chance to meet Ryan Reynolds, one of his other idols.

Sadly, the spirit of Deadpool himself was not on set, and Stiles didn’t want to interrupt, so he waited until the director had called a break. “Hey, what are you doing here?” Derek asked, as Stiles stepped in for a hug.

“Had to come down and talk to Finstock and some lawyer,” Stiles said. “Brought you lunch.”

“Thanks.” Derek looked down at the box of sushi and smiled slightly. “What lawyer?”

“Some guy named Harris. I guess the stunt guy is insisting he couldn’t have screwed up and saying that security must have let someone in who sabotaged the gear,” Stiles said. Derek’s smile faded into a frown. Seeing that, Stiles hastily reassured him, “Finstock says the guy’s full of shit, though.”

“Yeah, maybe. I just . . .” Derek shook his head. “Never mind.”

“What?” Stiles said, frowning.

“Sometimes I just feel like I’m cursed,” Derek said, not looking at him. “Whenever things in my life are starting to go well, something bad happens. Either to me or to someone I care about.”

“Hey,” Stiles said, reaching out to squeeze Derek’s hand. “It was just an accident. You said that yourself, remember? That it wasn’t my fault. So if it wasn’t mine, I sure as hell don’t see how it could be yours.”

“I guess.” Derek didn’t look convinced. “It just seems weird coming on the heels of the pool filled with wolfsbane.”

“Okay, point,” Stiles said, “but that was specifically targeted at _you_ ; it didn’t hurt me at all. Which might not make you feel better,” he added, “but they could have dumped hydrochloric acid in the pool and tried to kill both of us. So it doesn’t seem like the two incidents could really be related. Just a coincidence.”

“Yeah, true.” Derek appeared to shake the thoughts off. “Come on, let’s eat. I don’t have a lot of time for lunch.”

Since he had managed to reassure Derek, Stiles was annoyed to find the thoughts nagging at him as he went home after Derek had returned to filming. It _did_ seem weird. Derek had had a lot of tragedy in his life, especially for a werewolf. Stiles had never wanted to pry, but he had to admit that he had wondered, when reading about the fire that had killed Derek’s parents and siblings, how a simple electrical fire could have killed four werewolves. It had always seemed like there was probably something that hadn’t been released to the press. But he couldn’t exactly ask Derek about it, so he wasn’t sure what to say.

With a sigh, he went to get something to distract himself with. Maybe if he learned a few new protection spells, he would feel better.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter is mildly NSFW, and also has a trigger warning for discussion of past sexual assault.
> 
> *wonders if I should have rated this M*

 

Derek finished filming on the Deadpool movie four days later, but it would be about another week before Stiles’ arm was healed enough for him to go back to filming Star Wars. During the down time, he was working on his magic, thinking that maybe he could find a solution to the spell himself. Derek was right that Deucalion might not even be looking anymore. Stiles figured that even if he couldn’t find a way to reverse it, he might be able to shield them against the negative effects.

For the full moon, Derek decided to get out of the city for a while. Stiles didn’t really want to stay home without him, since he was still injured and nervous about the possibility that someone was trying to kill them, so instead of just driving up into the forest north of LA like usual, they drove to Big Bear Lake and got a cabin for a few days.

“I could really learn to live like this,” Derek said, drinking coffee on the porch and enjoying the fresh morning air. He still had twigs in his hair from his full moon run, and looked adorably rugged.

“I’m still surprised that you live in the city,” Stiles said. “I mean, there are so many people there, and you hate people.”

Derek gave a quiet snort and said, “Well, we all make sacrifices for our art.”

“I guess that’s true,” Stiles said, laughing.

By the time they were back in Los Angeles, Stiles was back to normal. They flew down to Costa Rica to finish filming. Stiles was surprised by how much everyone seemed to have been genuinely worried about him, even Braeden.

“When’s filming on episode eleven going to start?” he asked, realizing that he couldn’t exactly alternate movies with Derek when he was committed to at least two more pictures with Disney.

“Oh, who knows,” Finstock said. “They don’t even have a script for it yet. Probably at least a year, so cool your jets.”

The night they got back to California and were curled up in bed, Stiles said, “I can’t believe it’s been six months. I mean, I _can_ , but it feels weird to say it out loud. It’s still over six _more_ months before the third movie is going to be released. I feel like we should have a plan or something. I can’t just take a six month vacation. Well, I guess I could, it’s not like I need the money, but that makes me feel like a real one-percenter. Maybe I should do some volunteer work? I don’t know if I’d be great at that, but I could give it a try. Like, I could build houses for Habitat for Humanity. Or knit sweaters for penguins. I saw an article about that once. Except I don’t know how to knit. I could probably learn, though – ”

Derek’s shoulders were shaking with the effort to hide his laughter. “You are ridiculous.”

“Well, yeah,” Stiles said. “Come on, are you going to say a six month vacation doesn’t seem weird to you?”

“It does,” Derek admitted. “But there are plenty of charities in Los Angeles, so if we wanted to do some volunteer work, I think we could find some pretty easily.”

“Okay,” Stiles said.

Derek regarded him for a moment, clearly deep in thought. “Let me ask you something . . . we’ve been physically together pretty steadily for over a month now. Not trying to limit our time together or ration it out. Spending at least six to eight hours in physical contact because we’re sharing a bed. I, personally, don’t feel any of the symptoms we get from separation, but I know that I’m not as susceptible to them as you are. So I want to know if you are – and be honest.”

“I’m not,” Stiles said. “Scout’s honor. I feel completely fine.”

“And you don’t have any of the craving for physical contact?”

“Nope. What we’re doing seems to be working.”

“Okay.” Derek chewed on that for a moment, then said, “So if I really wanted to kiss you right now, that couldn’t be because of the spell, right?”

“Uh,” Stiles said, his heart skipping a beat. “I – guess not? I mean – ”

Derek kissed him. It was a lowkey sort of kiss, soft and gentle, not making any demands. Then he pulled away and said, “That was nice. I want to do it again. I want to do it every day for the rest of my life. And it has _nothing_ to do with some weird Sumerian binding spell.”

“But you,” Stiles had to swallow the lump in his throat. “You can’t _know_ that, you can’t – ”

“Yes, I can,” Derek said, holding his gaze. “Because I wanted to do this the night the first movie premiered, when you called Kate out on the red carpet. I wanted to do it the day you started sending me ridiculous text messages about movie trivia you had no business knowing. I wanted to do it the day you told me you were bisexual. All of that was before this spell was on us. And after what you said about it, I feel like the way you want to be with me doesn’t have anything to do with the spell, either. Tell me the first time you wanted to kiss me.”

“Dude, the day I _met_ you,” Stiles said, but then shook his head. “I mean, I didn’t know you then, I just knew . . . the idea of you, the person I looked up to. I guess . . . the day you pretended to be completely confused about that reporter saying we’d be uncomfortable with the idea of playing a gay character. That was just so hilarious and on point and I pretty much definitely fell in love with you then – ”

Derek kissed him again. This time Stiles went for it, opening his mouth under the pressure of Derek’s lips and cupping the back of his neck in one hand. They kissed until they were both out of breath, until finally Derek pulled away and said, “I love you, too. And it would be nice to get the spell reversed so we wouldn’t have to worry about compatible filming schedules and stupid side effects, but I’m not going to dwell on it. Because we’re going to get a summer home in Iceland and a winter home in Costa Rica and we’re going to make movies and knit sweaters for penguins and be together every day that we can be.”

“Yes, yeah, okay, one hundred ten percent on board over here,” Stiles said, and Derek kissed him again. Stiles threaded his hands in Derek’s hair and rolled them over so Derek was on his back and Stiles was straddling him. He heard Derek take in a quick breath and pulled away slightly. “Are you on board? With this? I mean, do you want to keep going?”

“I do, but . . .” Derek flushed a little pink and said, “I don’t have a lot of experience.” He cleared his throat and added, “Any. I don’t have any experience.”

“I wouldn’t have really figured you did,” Stiles says, smoothing Derek’s hair back out of his face. “I mean, given everything that happened. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I know,” Derek said. “I guess the problem is that I don’t really _know_ what I want to do.”

“Well,” Stiles said, “let me tell you what I want to do, and you can tell me whether or not it sounds like something you would enjoy. I want to take off all your clothes, kiss every inch of you between your neck and your knees, and then suck you off until you have the best orgasm of your life.”

Derek had to clear his throat again before he could speak, and even then, his voice was a pitch higher than normal. “Yeah, that, um. That does sound enjoyable.”

“Great,” Stiles said, grinning. “Let’s get started.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles woke up the next morning feeling good. Feeling great, even. He basked in the warm, relaxed feeling of having had an amazing night for a long minute before opening his eyes. Derek was already awake, and he was playing a game on his phone. This evidence that he hadn’t wanted to get up, but would rather continue cuddling, made Stiles feel even more rosy inside.

“G’morning,” he said, leaning in to press a kiss against Derek’s jaw. Derek rolled onto his side, tossing his phone onto the bedside table, and went in for a real kiss. Stiles responded, but kept his mouth shut. “You don’t understand the dangers of morning breath,” he said, laughing.

“Should I go get you a mint?” Derek teased.

“Noooo,” Stiles said, snuggling up to him. “You stay right here with me. Forever.”

“I don’t really think that’s logically feasible,” Derek said, but he didn’t protest in earnest, instead reaching out and trailing his fingers along Stiles’ spine in a way that made him shiver.

“Who needs logic?” Stiles said. “By the way, has anyone ever told you that your bed hair is adorable? I’ve been wanting to tell you that since the first night we slept in the same bed.”

“It’s not adorable,” Derek said, blushing slightly.

“It so is.”

“Yeah, well, you drool in your sleep.”

“Rude!” Stiles protests, laughing. He poked at Derek’s ribs, and Derek responded by swatting at his hand. Stiles beamed up at him. “Oh, man, I just wanna get so sappy right now. Like. I love you. You’re amazing and awesome and I have literally no idea how I got so lucky.”

Now Derek’s cheeks were flushed a deep pink. “You say that like you aren’t amazing and awesome.”

“You’re literally the first person to ever think so,” Stiles said, then amended, “Well, except my dad, but he’s like, required to. I think there’s a law.” Seeing that Derek really was embarrassed, he backed off a little. “So what’s the plan for today? I think we should see how many places around the house we can have sex.”

“I think we’ll run out of stamina before we run out of places,” Derek said. “This is a big house.”

“It is, but come on, you’re a werewolf, you’ve got stamina coming out your gills.”

“Werewolves don’t have gills.”

Stiles rolled them over so he was on top of Derek, forgetting about morning breath in the pursuit of a kiss. “Yeah, talk science to me, Derek.”

Derek choked back a laugh. “You’re a ridiculous creature.”

“I love making you laugh,” Stiles said, leaning in for a kiss.

“That’s good, because I love laughing at you.”

“Jerk,” Stiles said, biting Derek’s lower lip. All thoughts of being sappy or talking or morning breath were vanishing from his mind, and he rolled his hips against Derek’s, slow and deliberate. Derek’s hands came around to rest on the small of his back, then slid downward, underneath the waistband of Stiles’ pajama pants. Stiles let Derek move their hips together, but pulled back out of the kiss slightly. “I’m gonna make you feel so good. All you have to do is lie there; I’ll do all the work.”

Stiles instantly knew he had said or done the wrong thing. He could tell from the way Derek’s body suddenly went tense, the way his eyes widened just slightly, the way he sucked in a breath. Stiles froze and said, “You okay?”

“I can’t - ” Derek half-pushed Stiles off of him, although Stiles went without needing to be forced. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and hunched up, folding his arms over his stomach and letting his head hang down, almost touching his knees. Stiles hastened to move over so he was beside him, but didn’t touch him. He wasn’t sure whether or not that would be okay, although watching the way Derek’s body was trembling, he ached to give him some physical comfort. After several moments that seemed far too long to Stiles, Derek managed a deep breath and said, “Sorry. That was. I didn’t expect that.”

“What’s wrong?” Stiles asked, instead of asking if Derek was okay. He was very sure that Derek wasn’t.

“That’s just. Something she used to say. Kate.” Derek took another steadying breath, and managed to uncurl and loosen up slightly. “When I was, you know, not into it . . . which was pretty much always . . . she would say stuff like that. She didn’t get why I was making it a big deal. All I had to do was lie there. She had to do all the work anyway.”

Stiles winced. “Oh, man. I’m really sorry. I had no idea I was stepping on a land mine.”

“I know you didn’t.” Derek managed a wan smile. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. And I thought . . . this is stupid, but it was like, after last night, I thought I had finally put it behind me. I sort of figured for a long time that I’d probably never have sex with anyone, you know, voluntarily. Then you came along, and it surprised me, how much I really wanted to . . . to be with you like that. Even then, I thought when it actually came down to it, I’d be really nervous and uncomfortable. But last night was just . . . amazing.” He reached out and squeezed Stiles’ hand, as if to try to convince him of that. “I didn’t feel awkward or even nervous after the first couple of minutes. So I thought I was finally past it. Like I had just packed Kate up in a box and thrown her out with the trash.”

“Where she belongs,” Stiles was unable to help chipping in.

That slight smile touched Derek’s face again. “Yeah. And I was really happy, you know, to think it was finally behind me. But then you said that and it was like it just all came back. Sorry.”

Now feeling like his touch wouldn’t be unwelcome, Stiles reached out and gently squeezed Derek’s shoulder. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for and you know it.”

“Well. I kind of killed the mood.”

“No, Kate killed the mood. From like, a hundred miles away. Which is kind of impressive in an evil sort of way.” Stiles let his hand drift down Derek’s back, rubbing comforting circles. “Don’t feel bad, okay? There will be another mood. And, you know, any time I say or do something in the bedroom that makes you uncomfortable, you should tell me. Even if it doesn’t have anything to do with Kate.”

Derek’s gaze darted to him uncertainly, like he was assessing Stiles’ sincerity. Then he nodded, his smile warming up slightly. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Stiles leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “How about some breakfast?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

The two of them headed downstairs. Stiles still did most of the cooking, although Derek had been showing more interest lately. He made them some scrambled eggs with cheese, peppers, and onions, and Derek made them each some coffee and some toast. Stiles insisted on sitting in Derek’s lap while they ate so he could periodically press kisses into Derek’s neck and jaw. “Why are you like this,” Derek said.

“You love it,” Stiles replied in a sing-song voice.

“I do,” Derek admitted. “God, what is wrong with me.” He leaned in and nuzzled at Stiles’ neck. “I know things have been weird and our relationship has been like, the opposite of a normal one, but I’m really lucky to have met you. I’m glad you got that part. In fact,” he added, “in case I’ve never told you this before, you were really amazing in that role.”

“Oh my God, shut up,” Stiles said, flushing pink. “And I thought I was the sappy one.”

“I’ve earned the right to be a little sappy.” Derek went a little melancholy again. “I know you lost your mom and that was really hard for you, but you don’t . . . for the last decade, almost, I’ve been resigned to the fact that I would never be happy. Every time things were looking up for me, awful things would happen. I mean, my family, and then after I got nominated for my first SAG award, I got hit by a car. After one of my movies did really well when I was twenty-two, I got the worst food poisoning of my life from some dumbass caterer who thought mistletoe was ‘artsy’. Then the whole thing with the wolfsbane in the pool . . .”

Stiles couldn’t help it anymore. “Yeah, uh, can I be totally honest with you, I’m just gonna have to say it, I think there’s like a ninety-eight percent chance the wolfsbane thing was Kate. And maybe the others things were, too; nobody _accidentally_ puts mistletoe in food, come on, that’s fucking stupid.”

Derek blinked at him. “I don’t know why she would do that . . .”

“Because she’s the worst, okay?” Stiles moved out of Derek’s lap, figuring that maybe they should be facing for this conversation. “She’s the literal, actual worst. The wolfsbane thing, I _definitely_ think was her. I mean, look at the timing of it. You almost got her blacklisted - basically did get her blacklisted by any _respectable_ studio. Then I told her off on the red carpet and made her look like a jackass in front of half the press. As soon as we get together - at least in name - and start living together and I land an amazing part in Star Wars, someone tries to kill you? I’m just surprised she didn’t try to kill me, too. Maybe she had a plan, maybe she just sucks, I don’t know.”

Derek was frowning, and his shoulders hunched in slightly, but he said, “Maybe she _did_ try. What happened on set - if it really wasn’t an accident - that would punish Finstock and the studio as much for casting you, as it punished you. Actually, it makes a lot of sense. She grew up on movie sets. She’d have the technical knowledge to have sabotaged your gear without it being immediately obvious. Plus she’d have the security clearance to get on set - or if she didn’t, she would have whined ‘don’t you know who I am’ and somebody would have let her in.”

“But nobody remembered seeing her?” Stiles said. “That seems unlikely.”

“My bet is people did, but they were afraid of saying anything. I mean, the fact that she had reason to hate you was pretty well known - justified or not. If she was on the set of a movie that she had no business being on and you turned up hurt, people would make the connection. They’d also know if they said a word about it, her family would ruin their entire careers.”

“Ugh, what flaming douchebags,” Stiles said. “I mean, I definitely think she’s capable, I just don’t know if it really happened that way. Either way. I mean, seeing your ex and his amazing new boyfriend is hard even for people who broke up on amicable terms - not that I know from tons of experience, I’ve dated, like, two people. But the point stands. I can totally see her flipping her shit and deciding to try to kill us both.”

“I guess.” Derek looked profoundly uncomfortable with the topic, and Stiles decided not to bring up the topic of the fire, at least not for now. He wanted to do a little more research first in any case.

“Look, let’s not worry about it,” Stiles said. “Kate has already ruined enough of our day. Right now I just want to eat breakfast and then take a shower, and if you’re up for it, for you to take it with me.”

Derek’s smile slowly returned. “I think I could be very up for that.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd and very tired (the chapter and me, respectively) so apologies if typos and such

 

The next three days were, without question, the best three days of Stiles’ life to date. They occasionally left the bedroom to eat and shower, but that was pretty much it. When they weren’t having sex, they were cuddled up in bed together, watching movies or TV on Stiles’ laptop.

On the fourth day, they finally ran out of food and Derek grumpily agreed to leave the house. “Let’s just go grab some burgers or something.”

“Okay, but we have to stop at the grocery on the way home,” Stiles said. Derek groaned, and Stiles said, “Come on, if we don’t buy groceries today we’re gonna wind up having to leave the house again tomorrow. Is that what you want? Is it?” He poked Derek in the ribs. “Is it?”

Derek growled and swatted at his hand. “Okay, fine.”

They went out to their favorite diner, which they loved not only for the food but because they were regulars and the wait staff would always help shield them from rogue paparazzi. Of course, that only helped while they were inside; as soon as they left, a dozen people were snapping pictures.

“I just don’t get it,” Derek said, as they got in the car. “Who even cares that two actors went out to get a burger together?”

“They care because one of those actors is you,” Stiles said.

Derek rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean, and I’m hardly the only actor that gets stalked by paparazzi.”

“No, that’s true.” Stiles had to stop and think about it for a minute. “I guess it’s kind of hard to explain. I mean, I won’t lie, I used to be one of those fanboys who would have loved to see a picture of you going out and grabbing a burger.”

“Okay, but . . . why?” Derek asked, frowning faintly.

“A couple reasons. I mean, first of all, it’s nice to see that celebrities are normal people. When you see a picture of an awesome actor going about the same sort of daily business as everyone, it helps regular people think that they too can be that awesome someday. And secondly, when you admire someone or look up to them, it’s nice to see that they’re healthy and happy. Those are the reasons I like to see pictures of my faves. Even now, when I’m in Star Wars and shit, I love to see pictures of Robert Downey Jr. shlumping around in a grocery store, or Anne Hathaway making a face when she realizes the last cupcake is gone. Because it means that they’re just regular people, and some day I might be as awesome as they are.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Derek said.

“You don’t see it because you never considered yourself awesome,” Stiles said, leaning over to give him a kiss on the cheek. “So let it be known that you are, in fact, awesome.”

Derek flushed pink and scowled at him. “Whatever. Let’s just go get some groceries.”

“Okay,” Stiles said, grinning.

After a moment, Derek looked over and said, “You’re awesome too, you know.”

“Well, I’m in Star Wars, so yeah, obviously,” Stiles said, and Derek huffed out a laugh. They bought their groceries and headed back to the house.

The next morning, Derek had an e-mail from Boyd about a role in a movie about a famous boxer. “Ugh, I’m gonna have to lift weights for weeks,” Derek said. “I hate having to get all big and muscle bound.”

“I like you that way,” Stiles said, squeezing Derek’s bicep fondly. “Of course, I also like you not that way. Anyway, don’t take the role if you don’t want it.”

“No, I want it, it’s also starring Marisa Tomei and Idris Elba. I’m in.”

Stiles laughed and nuzzled into Derek’s neck. “See, you have actors that you have professional crushes on, too.”

“Who _doesn’t_ have a crush on them,” Derek replied. “Hey, what did Lydia think about your plan to try for a TV role?”

“Ehhh, she wasn’t a huge fan of the idea to be honest. Not because she thought it was a step down, but because she thought it wouldn’t really provide the sort of stability I thought it would. That for every Big Bang Theory that goes on eight seasons longer than it should, there are other shows that get cancelled after a season and a half. How did she put it? You think you’re in for five years but then some dude at Fox gets the wrong latte and cancels half their lineup.”

Derek gave a snort. “True.”

“Plus she reminded me that these days there are a lot of shows that film on location instead of in studios, like Game of Thrones, though frankly I’d rather be shot than be in that show, which Lydia is still mad at me for saying.”

“She’s a fan?”

“She’s got a huge crush on Kit Harrington. Speaking of actor crushes.” Stiles shrugged. “So I’ll stick to movies unless some amazing TV role is thrown in my lap. I was thinking after the third movie came out, maybe we should just, you know, tell people what happened. And that we have to take turns taking roles, and that if anyone has a problem with it, they can take it up with Deucalion.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Derek said with a nod. “I guess it’s also possible that more publicity might help us find a solution for it. Some pretty good magic has been invented through crowd-sourcing.”

“That’s true!” Stiles brightened up at that. “Cool. Okay. We’ve got a plan.”

“We’ve got a plan,” Derek agreed, and kissed him.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles was looking through some papers when the doorbell rang, and he jogged over to pull it open to reveal Lydia standing there with a troubled expression. “Hey, ‘sup, come on in,” he said, standing back. “What’d you find out?”

Lydia came inside, and as soon as the door was shut behind herself, she said, “Why did you ask me to look this stuff up?”

“Uh, it’s kind of a long story,” Stiles said, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m taking it from your reaction that I was right?”

Instead of replying, Lydia said, “Where’s Derek?”

“He’s shooting today. It’s just the two of us. Come on, I’ll get you some coffee.”

Lydia followed him into the kitchen and sat down at the table while he poured them both a mug, pouring a generous amount of cream and sugar into hers. She took a sip while looking at him over the rim. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

Stiles shrugged. “Nothing you couldn’t already figure out. I mean, I just feel like so many awful things have happened to Derek, and it can’t be a coincidence. I think Kate’s been behind a lot of this shit, and I’m trying to cobble together enough evidence to prove it, or at least take it to the police and see what they can do. I mean, some of this stuff could have just been accidents, but one thing _definitely_ wasn’t, and that was the wolfsbane in the pool. The timing just really seems to point to her. It happened right after I got the role in Star Wars. That had to piss her off, after I humiliated her like that.”

“Okay, but then why use wolfsbane? That could have killed Derek, but you would have been fine.”

“Yeah, and I think that’s exactly why,” Stiles said. “If I hadn’t been able to fish him out of the pool, he could have died. And she doesn’t want to kill Derek. She wants to _hurt_ him.”

Lydia’s mouth pursed. “Then why not use something a werewolf would be immune to but a human wouldn’t? I’d think killing his boyfriend would have hurt him.”

“Okay, fair,” Stiles said, “but I don’t think Kate thought we were actually boyfriends. I think she knows about the whole spell and the accidentally married thing.”

At that, Lydia’s eyebrows go up. “How could she know?”

“I think a lot more people know than we realized, actually. It occurred to me later – Deucalion’s been making inquiries, right? He’s been talking to a bunch of people, a lot of whom are in the industry. It would have been easy for the rumor to make it to the Argents.”

“Okay, but then everyone would know,” Lydia pointed out.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Stiles replied. “I was actually thinking about that a lot, not just about this specifically but about Kate’s whole reputation, the sort of stuff that’s been happening with the Me Too movement. Especially Kevin Spacey. Pretty much everyone _in_ Hollywood knew he was a creeper, but nobody _outside_ Hollywood knew. We can’t keep secrets from each other worth half a damn, but if it’s something we don’t want the general public to know . . .”

“I don’t know why anyone would have cared that much,” Lydia said. “It’s not really a scandalous secret. It’s almost . . . funny, at least to an outsider.”

Stiles shrugged. “I think most people wouldn’t say anything because we hadn’t said anything, and if Deucalion specifically told people to keep it on the down low because if they spoil the end of the Haven movies he’ll kill them . . . but it’s all just speculation. The reason I think she knows could be coincidence. It goes back to my accident on the Star Wars set.”

Lydia stirred her coffee. “How so?”

“Even if someone sabotaged my gear, I still would have had to mess up the stunt in order for anything to happen,” Stiles said, “and to be honest, it was a pretty simple stunt. The reason I fucked up was because I was exhausted and fucked up from being separated from Derek. And he was gone because his roles got mixed up, because Alexander Argent took over the movie he was _supposed_ to be working on.”

“Hm. That is odd, I have to admit. You think he snatched it on purpose so he could fire Derek?”

“I actually don’t just think he snatched it; I know he did. The guy who was supposed to be directing it was pretty pissed off that he got canned. I only had to ask around a little to find out he had been complaining loudly about how it was all political garbage and the Argents had bullied the studio into letting Alexander Argent replace him on a project he had worked really hard on.”

“Huh.” Lydia chewed on her lower lip. “That doesn’t explain the other role being open, though.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Stiles agreed. “Like I said, it could all be coincidence. It’s just, if it is, it’s a _lot_ of coincidence. Which brings me to ask again what you found out.”

Lydia sighed, her exquisitely manicured nails tapping at the table. “Yes, you were right. I talked to a few of the other agents I know. After Derek left the sitcom, Kate and Gerard made it very clear that his career was going to ‘that crappy sci-fi show’,” she made the air quotes, “to die. And that he was not to be hired for any major projects.”

“But he still was,” Stiles said.

“Yeah. Satomi Ito saw him on said sci-fi show and thought he was amazing. She was in the process of writing her next script, and wrote the role in _A Room Without a Door_ with Derek in mind. Then she got Kali Steele to direct, and of course they immediately offered Derek the role and he accepted. Apparently Kate threw a temper tantrum over it and tried to get the two of them to rescind the offer, and got her daddy to threaten them – ”

“But if there’s two women in Hollywood who are _less_ concerned with what some crusty old white dude thinks, it’s Satomi and Kali?”

Lydia snorted. “Pretty much. They told Gerard to take a long walk off a short pier. Kate started badmouthing them and the project and even tried to get the studio involved. Which in the long run actually led to her losing a role she was in the process of being offered. In fact, nobody would cast her in anything for almost two years, until some flunky of Gerard’s put her in a picture and her career started to pick back up. But yeah, she had ample reason to target Derek – in her own twisted head, I mean. Obviously he didn’t actually do anything wrong.”

“Yeah.” Stiles let out a breath. “Jesus. Where do I go from here?”

Lydia arched a perfect eyebrow at him. “Have you talked to Derek about this?”

“A little. At least about the wolfsbane and the Star Wars thing. I hadn’t brought up the fire yet. I just didn’t have any evidence, and I didn’t want to upset him. And it’s not like I can just request a police file. I’m not sure there even was one, since the arson investigator said it was an accident.”

“Maybe you should talk to your dad,” Lydia suggested. “He could probably make a few calls, one cop to another, to see what they thought at the time, how much was done.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Stiles said. “He’ll probably tell me to mind my own business, but I’ll give it a go.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles had wondered, when he set up the protection spells, what it would feel like if they were disturbed. The books were vague on this subject, saying that the reaction could be different for every caster, but that it would be a definite physical sensation of some kind. Since he hoped he would never find out first hand, it was disappointing that it wasn’t described.

Then one night as he and Derek entered the house after an amazing date at their favorite Chinese restaurant, Stiles felt all the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand up. He started shivering, even though he was intellectually aware that he wasn’t cold. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

Derek looked over from where he was putting their bag of leftovers in the refrigerator. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. I feel – weird. Shivery and anxious. I think it’s a reaction from the protection spells I did.”

Derek’s body immediately went taut and tense. He went over to the back door, where the mage they had hired had put up a talisman that monitored the conditions of her spells. “These seem undisturbed.”

“I could be wrong, but I just – ” Stiles rubbed his hands over his arms. “It feels like something’s really wrong.”

“Can you check them?”

“Um, I think so.” Stiles walked over to their bookshelves and looked through his magic textbooks, pulling down one of the volumes. He leafed through until he found the exact spell he had used, then nodded and said, “Okay, yeah. Get me some matches while I grab one of the white candles.”

“Sure.” Derek was frowning as he did this, studying Stiles as he lit the candle with hands that still trembled. Stiles took in a deep breath and then let it out, cupping his hands on both sides of the flame, focusing on the spell he had cast. The flame immediately guttered and went out. “That didn’t look like a good reaction.”

“No, it means I was right and something triggered the spell.” Stiles frowned and looked over at the mage’s talisman. “I don’t get it. Hers were way more sensitive and stronger than mine. How could something trigger mine but not hers? If anything, it should have been the other way around.”

“Was there any other difference between yours and hers?” Derek asked, then shook his head. “Never mind. We can figure this out later, we should get out of here – we can call the police and they’ll send someone to check things out – ”

Stiles wasn’t really listening, because now that he was thinking about it, there _was_ one major difference between his spell and the professional one. “Wait, hang on,” he said. “I mean, you’re right, but leaving might not help. I think _we’re_ the danger that triggered the spell.”

“What?” Derek’s frown deepened.

“The mage put little passes in the spell for us. Because hers was so sensitive, right? It triggers at anyone crossing the threshold. We didn’t want it going off all the time, so she put in a little gap for me, you, Boyd, Erica, Lydia, and your sisters. Mine doesn’t have those gaps, because I don’t know how to do that, and I figured it wouldn’t matter because my spell only detects active harm. So I think the only way that something could have triggered my spell but not hers is if we brought the threat in.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Derek said. “I mean, I don’t plan to hurt you, and I’m pretty sure you don’t plan to hurt me, so . . .”

“So . . .” Stiles’ eyes suddenly went wide. He jogged over to the refrigerator, opened it, and pulled open the bag of Chinese food. He was somewhat disappointed when he didn’t see a bomb or some other obvious threat. He started taking the containers out one at a time, carefully sniffing each one. Seeing what he was getting at, Derek came over to sniff them as well, with his more sensitive nose.

Before he got to the last container, Stiles saw a slip of folded paper tucked in between two of them. He pulled it out and unfolded it, to reveal that it was covered with magical symbols.

“What the hell is that?” Derek asked.

“It’s a negation spell, I think. Hang on.” Stiles started flipping through the textbook again. “Yeah, okay. It’s like . . . kind of a magical time bomb. At midnight – that’s this symbol here – it goes off. It works kind of like an EMP – negating any magical energy around it.”

“To take down the protection spells,” Derek said.

“Right. It would give our stalker a chance to get inside without us knowing. Probably through the side entrance again – that has the weakest security.”

Derek lets out a breath. “Okay. Let’s call the – ”

“Wait, hang on,” Stiles said. “If the police show up, it’ll spook her. But if we wait – we know exactly when she’s going to come in. If we let this thing do its mojo, then she’ll come into the house. We can call the cops _then_ , and get her arrested.”

Derek didn’t question Stiles’ use of the female pronoun. “That’s way too dangerous.”

“Not really. We know exactly where she’ll be. She has to come into the kitchen to get the spell back, or else we’ll have evidence of what she did. If we just wait down low over there, where the island would keep us from being seen, I can tase the shit out of her before she even knows we’ve figured it out.”

“I don’t know.” Derek chewed on his lower lip. “I don’t want to give her a chance to hurt you.”

“Me neither,” Stiles said. “That’s why we have to do this. Because she’s not going to stop, Derek. Not until we stop her.”

Derek let out a breath. “Yeah. Okay.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	10. Chapter 10

 

“This is a bad idea, this is a bad idea,” Derek muttered, as they crouched down behind the kitchen island.

“You’re supposed to say ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this’,” Stiles told him.

Derek gave him a look and said, “If you could maybe _not_ be super flip about this, that would be great.”

Stiles winced. “Yeah, okay. Sorry. But it’s gonna work out fine, Derek. We know exactly where she’s going to be and almost exactly when she’s gonna be there. We just stay right here where we’re hidden from the entrance, and it’ll work. I swear.”

Derek said nothing, but after a moment, he nodded. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Stiles wasn’t sure whether or not he would feel anything at midnight, when the spells broke, but he didn’t. He supposed that made sense; they weren’t his spells. He didn’t hear anything, either, but less than two minutes later, Derek’s hand suddenly tightened on his wrist.

“Do you hear her?” Stiles asked, in the lowest whisper he could possibly manage.

“Just her heartbeat,” Derek murmured. A few moments later, he said, “She went into the garage.”

That made sense to Stiles. The garage lock would be relatively easy to break, and from there she could get into the house. It would be easier to do that than to try to get through the sliding glass doors that led from the living room to the patio.

The silence drew out, feeling longer with every minute that passed. “What the fuck is she doing in there?” Stiles muttered at one point, and Derek squeezed his wrist as if to remind him to be quiet. Whatever Kate was doing in the garage, it couldn’t be anything good. Stiles reminded himself that that was the whole point - they wanted to catch her in the act of trying to hurt them.

Finally, he heard the tiny scritching of metal on metal as Kate picked the lock to the door from the garage into the house. The door swung open without making a nose, and she was just as silent when crossing the room. Only the tension in Derek’s shoulders warned Stiles that she was almost there.

The fridge swung open, and the sudden light in the room was his cue. He jerked to his feet and fired the taser as soon as she came into view. She started to twist, but it was far too late. She went down writhing and twitching, and Stiles couldn’t help a triumphant, “Booyeah!”

“Jesus, Stiles,” Derek muttered, and took out his phone, calling 911. “Hi, I need police, someone broke into my house.”

While he was talking to the operator, Stiles used some duct tape to secure Kate’s hands behind her back, and then her feet. She was coming around when he finished, and started struggling. “You son of a bitch,” she started, but that was all she got out before Stiles put a piece of duct tape firmly over her mouth. He had no interest in letting her say a single word to Derek.

Derek opened the front door so the police could get in, but he didn’t want to leave Stiles alone with Kate, even with her bound and gagged. So they were in the kitchen when someone shouted from the front, “This is the police!”

“In here, officers!” Stiles shouted. He knew how to talk to police, and was quick to add, “We have the intruder subdued!” because he didn’t want them thinking that they were the intruders.

Two uniformed officers came in a moment later. One of them saw Kate on the floor and frowned, then looked at Derek and some of the suspicion cleared off his face. “Mr. Hale. This is your house?”

“Yeah,” Derek said. “She broke in and disturbed the wards. My boyfriend,” he gestured to Stiles, “used a taser on her.”

The officer almost apologetically asked for Derek’s ID, so he could verify that it was in fact his house. Derek provided it, and Stiles was glad that Derek had updated it after the move, wanting to be sure he was registered to vote in the correct district. Meanwhile, the other officer got Kate into a chair and took the duct tape off her, applying handcuffs instead. As soon as he saw her face, he said, “Whoa. Is that - ”

“Hell yes it is, and you’re going to lose your fucking badge over this,” Kate snapped. “You’ll never work in this town again, you piece of shit - ”

“Oh my God, are you a walking cliché?” Stiles asked. “You’ll never work in this town again, seriously?”

Kate ignored him. “These two assaulted me and tied me up and now you’re just going to take their _word_ for it that I broke in, we see what the word of a woman is worth to you - ”

“Oh, do not make this about misogyny,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. “Officers, if you look in the refrigerator, someone earlier tonight slipped a spell into the bag of our leftovers which disarmed the house’s magical defenses.” He saw Kate’s eyes widen slightly and enjoyed it. “I don’t know if it’ll have her prints on it. Maybe you can track it down through the seller. She also spent at least ten minutes in the garage after she got here, so maybe we should take a look and see what she did.”

The first officer shook his head and said, “I don’t envy you two. The tabloids are gonna have a field day with this. Jefferson, stay in here with her. I’ll go take a look in the garage.”

“You are going to regret this,” Kate said. “Fucking assault, kidnapping - ”

“Would you put a lid on it?” Stiles said. “I can’t wait until we run your GPS and your credit cards to prove that you’re the one who broke in last time and dumped a bunch of wolfsbane in the pool. And, uh, by ‘we’ I mean ‘you’, officer.”

The officer gave a snort of laughter, and looked up as the other man came in from the garage. He was a little paler than before, and said in a carefully controlled voice, “Jefferson, we’ve got a 10-79. We need to evacuate the premises.” To Derek, he added, “Is anybody else here? Kids, pets?”

“Just us,” Derek said, his voice a little tight.

“Okay. Jefferson, take these two down to the station. I’ve called for backup to pick up Ms. Argent here.”

“Did you call the bomb squad?” Stiles asked, and the officer gave him a look. “Uh, sorry. Raised by a sheriff. I know all the police codes and I do understand why you don’t generally walk into a room full of civilians and say ‘hey, there’s a bomb in the garage’ and I’m sure calling the bomb squad was the first thing you did and you know what I’ll just head for the door now.”

Derek was shaking his head a little as the police officer ushered them out. Once they were in the car, Stiles reached out and squeezed his hand. “I’m sure the house will still be there later,” he said, and Derek glanced at him. “It wasn’t on a timer or anything, because Kate wasn’t in any hurry to leave. She probably wired it to the ignition of the car.”

“Yeah. I guess you’re right about that.” Derek let out a breath. “Still.”

“Well, yeah, I’m not _happy_ about it,” Stiles said. “I’m just saying, I think it’s going to be fine.”

Derek’s jaw tightened, and he didn’t say anything else for the rest of the ride. Once they were at the police station, they each had to give a statement. The detective asked a lot of questions, not just about this particular incident, but also the wolfsbane in the pool. About halfway through, he took a phone call, then told them that the bomb squad had successfully disarmed and removed the device that had been placed in the car.

By the time they were finished, they had talked themselves hoarse. “I’m going to go get us some drinks,” Derek said. “I saw a vending machine in the lobby downstairs.”

Stiles, who has been drinking, and secretly loving, the terrible police station coffee, said, “Okay. Maybe get me a Sprite or something non-caffeinated.”

Derek gave a quiet snort and nodded, heading over to the elevator. As the doors closed behind him, Stiles realized he had been given an opportunity. The lead detective, Parrish, was just sitting down at his desk. Stiles went over and said, “Hey, can I ask you something? Tell you something?”

“Shoot,” Parrish said.

“I don’t know for sure, but I feel like maybe the fire that killed Derek’s parents and his two brothers might not have been an accident,” Stiles said, and Parrish frowned. “I know it was a long time ago, but I think there were some unanswered questions about how a house fire could have killed a bunch of werewolves. It’s not that I have any proof or even evidence. It’s just a gut feeling.”

“You’ve got a point about the werewolf thing,” Parrish said. “I’ll make sure we get Kate’s phones and financial records back that far, see if anything pops.”

“Okay. Thanks, Detective.”

He went back to the little lounge where he and Derek had been answering questions. When Derek came back with the sodas, he said, “Maybe we should go get some breakfast? What time is it, like, three AM? Nick’s Café opens early, right?”

“Yeah, like five thirty early, not ‘the middle of the night’ early,” Derek said, rolling his eyes. “If you’re hungry, let’s go home and eat the leftover Chinese.”

“Sounds good,” Stiles said.

He had no sooner stood up when the elevator door opened and Gerard Argent stormed in, looking furious. Stiles had never seen the Hollywood mogul in person before, although he had seen him interviewed plenty of times. He gave the immediate impression of being someone Stiles had no interest in associating with, ever. As soon as he saw Derek, he stomped over and said, “You! What have you done to my daughter, you – ”

“Sir, excuse me,” Parrish said, intervening before Derek had to reply. “Your daughter is fine. She’s in holding and we have been waiting for her lawyer to arrive.”

“On what grounds do you have any right to – ”

Stiles leaned over to Derek and said, sotto voce, “How long before he says ‘do you know who I am’?” Derek choked on a laugh and had to turn away. Parrish’s entire mouth pursed as he obviously tried not to smile at Stiles’ comment.

Gerard whirled on them, but focused on Derek, not Stiles. “Whatever bullshit this is, you are going to regret it, do you understand? I’ll have you blacklisted before you can drive back to that second-rate shack you call a beach house. You’ll never be cast in another role again.”

Stiles was going to ask if the beach house he was referring to was the same one that Kate had just tried to blow up, but Derek’s response was far better. He looked Gerard square in the eye and said, “Okay.”

That took the wind out of Gerard’s sails. “O – what?”

“Okay,” Derek said with a shrug. “Fine. I’ve had a good run. I’ve enjoyed acting. But lately I’ve been thinking about quitting anyway. Getting a cabin up in Iceland, raising sheep, having plenty of space. So if you’re going to threaten to ruin my career to try to keep me from pressing charges against your daughter for breaking into my house and trying to kill me not once but twice, then you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”

“You don’t understand what I’m capable of – ”

“No, I do,” Derek said. “I just don’t care. Good night, Mr. Argent.”

Stiles was still laughing as Derek took him by the wrist and towed him out of the room. As soon as they were outside, he said, “God, I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Derek said, smiling as he slid an arm around Stiles’ waist. “Let’s go back to your apartment and crash. We can deal with the rest of it tomorrow.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Okay, you sure you want to do this?” Stiles asked, his finger hovering over the enter key. Derek’s jaw firmed up a little, and he nodded, so Stiles pressed it. Buzzfeed came up in all its glory a moment later, and the very first headline on the page screamed out, ‘KATE ARGENT ARRESTED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER’.

“Nice,” Stiles said, mostly to himself, as he clicked on the article. Derek was scowling, but that probably wasn’t too surprising, all things considered.

The article got most of the pertinent facts correct, stating that Kate Argent had been arrested in the wee hours of the night after allegedly breaking into Derek’s house and leaving a bomb in his car. They mentioned that she was also being questioned about the wolfsbane incident, as well as Stiles’ accident on the Star Wars set.

“Ugh,” Derek said, with feeling, and he looked down at his phone. “I guess I’d better call Erica and see what magic she’s concocting. The article doesn’t have a statement from me, does it?”

Stiles laughed. “Nope, nothing from you, just that you were unavailable for comment.”

“Okay. I did text Erica last night and told her I’d call her when I was up for the day. Looks like - yeah, she texted me around six thirty saying she was already fielding a million calls and that she’d come by with coffee and pastries as soon as she heard from me.”

Erica brought Boyd with her, and Stiles asked Lydia to come over as well, since she was his PR person as well as his agent. “You guys had a rough night,” Boyd said, with his usual reserved way of understatement.

“And that’s why we brought these,” Erica added, setting down the plain pink box with pastries from the best bakery in northern LA.

“You two are okay?” Lydia asked, giving them an up-and-down look as if to verify.

“Yeah, thanks to Stiles,” Derek said, with a shy little smile. “He really kicked ass last night.”

Stiles immediately flushed pink. “Yeah, well. She’s the worst.”

“Just tell us what happened,” Boyd said.

Stiles did most of the talking, because Derek still didn’t really want to talk about it. Erica and Lydia both took some notes, and the former made frequent contributions such as ‘yikes’ and ‘gross’ and ‘what a bitch’. When Stiles was done talking, Erica said, “So what sort of statement do you want to release?”

“A short one,” Derek said.

Lydia gave a snort. “That’s easy enough, since we’re not supposed to talk a lot about an open investigation anyway. How about we just say that you’ve given all the relevant information to the police and you’ll await their decisions on exactly what charges are going to be pressed? And that you would appreciate privacy during this difficult time, of course.”

“Not that that’ll get you very far,” Erica added. “You guys are lucky nobody knows where this apartment is. They are _swarming_ at the house. Legit press, tabloids, paparazzi, seriously, if they own a camera, they’re there.”

“Christ,” Derek muttered.

Stiles reached out and squeezed his hand. “Let’s take a few days off, okay? Nobody knows where we are now, so let’s leave before they figure it out. Lydia, can you drive us somewhere that we can rent a car? We can road trip it up to Beacon Hills for a few days.”

“Why don’t I rent the car and we just won’t tell anyone who will actually be driving it,” Lydia suggested.

“Very Slytherin of you,” Stiles said, with an approving nod.

Lydia gave him an annoyed huff. “You know I’m a Ravenclaw.”

Derek muffled a laugh behind his hand, and Stiles beamed at him, nudging their shoulders together. “The only Slytherin here is you,” Derek said.

“Absolutely,” Stiles said. “Now come on, let’s get out of here. You need a few days far away from the city.”

Derek absolutely couldn’t argue with that. He didn’t have any belongings at Stiles’ apartment, and there was no way Stiles’ clothes would fit him. Erica offered to run back to the house for them. “I’m gonna have to talk to the press anyway, and I’ll be happy to tell their gossip-thirsty asses that they’re not gonna see you any time soon. Just write a list of what you want me to grab.”

While they were waiting, Stiles called his father. He had texted him that morning to say they were okay and he’d call later, because his father might not read TMZ, but he wouldn’t miss an article about an attempted murder. Stiles didn’t want to get into too many details over the phone, but he gave his father the bare bones of the situation and said they were going to drive up. It wasn’t exactly a short drive, but neither of them wanted to fly. They’d be there that evening.

By the time they were in the car and beyond city limits, more of the details had been released to the press, including Derek and Stiles’ statements. Gerard Argent had issued one as well, a lot of bluster about how Derek was going to regret harassing his beautiful daughter and he was going to sue Derek for every penny he was worth.

The phone rang just after they cleared the mountains, and Stiles glanced down and saw that it was Detective Parrish. He picked it up and said, “Hello?”

“Hey, Stiles, it’s Detective Parrish. Got a minute?”

“I’ve got an hour. I’m in the car getting as far away from the paparazzi as possible, but Derek’s driving. What’s up?”

“Just wanted to give you a quick update. After the story was released about what happened last night, someone called in with an anonymous tip that Kate had been responsible for your accident on set - that he had seen her there that day but couldn’t leave his name because he was afraid of career reprisals.”

“Yeah, that tracks,” Stiles said. “I was wondering how you guys had jumped on that so early.”

“We’ve got the warrants for all of Kate’s records, so we’ll see what we find. Her bail hearing is first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Ugh. Isn’t she a flight risk?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Kate’s the sort of person who thinks she can bluff her way out of anything. She might rather stick around, figuring she’ll win the court case. Her official story, in case you’re curious, is that she’s never seen that charm that was in your Chinese food, she had been invited to stay the night by Derek, and he assaulted her.”

“And the bomb in the car?”

“Just happened to be there, must have been put there earlier by someone else, has nothing to do with her.”

Stiles squinted at the phone for a moment before saying, “Sure.”

Parrish laughed. “Yeah, I know. It’s a pretty fantastic story. Give us twenty-four hours and we will have poked a dozen holes in it. I’ll call you guys tomorrow with an update.”

“Okay. Have fun.”

Stiles hung up and said, “You could hear all that, right?”

“Yeah,” Derek said. He shook his head a little and said, “Maybe instead of going to your dad’s, we should go somewhere remote and secluded.”

“We’d probably be safer at my dad’s, to be honest,” Stiles said. “He owns several firearms.”

“I guess.”

Stiles reached out and squeezed Derek’s wrist. “You’re upset, I get that. But try not to focus on it. There’s plenty of stuff we can do in Beacon Hills to distract ourselves, and my dad won’t make a big deal out of it, I promise. Neither of us are filming right now, so we’ve got time to just chill out for a while.”

“Yeah.” Derek let out a breath. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

News trickled in gradually over the next few days. Kate posted bail but was put on house arrest, with both magical and electronic monitoring, because she was considered a flight risk. Derek still hated the idea of her being anywhere except prison, but there wasn’t a lot they could do about it. They couldn’t even avoid Los Angeles until the trial, which would undoubtedly be months or even years away.

Kate was definitely going to take it to trial, and was continuing to make protestations as to her innocence. Stiles frankly found her protests hilarious. He looked up some articles about it and braved the comments sections, and found the reactions of the public pretty entertaining as well. Nobody seemed impressed by Kate’s argument that somebody just _happened_ to plant a bomb in Derek’s car the night she was accused of breaking in.

The police had basically already proved that it couldn’t have happened that way. The bomb was wired to the ignition of Derek’s car, which meant that it only could have been planted once the car was in the garage. Derek’s security system clearly showed that only Stiles and Derek were in it when they got home for the day. Nobody else had come and gone through the front entrance or the side entrance, which pretty much proved that Kate hadn’t been invited in.

They were finding other evidence, too. Her bank statements had ample evidence that she had been behind the wolfsbane incident. She had paid with a credit card at two different magic stores a few days before it had happened, and although they didn’t have a record of exactly what she had bought, both sold the type of spells she would have needed to break in. One of them also sold dried, concentrated wolfsbane. That was incredibly illegal, and now the store owner was in a lot of hot water. Parrish thought he would agree to a plea deal if he could testify that Kate had purchased the wolfsbane there.

Erica was checking the house for them every day, and when all but a few die-hard paparazzi had left, they headed back to LA. They had been in Beacon Hills nearly a week, and even Stiles was getting a little tired of lounging on the hammock and playing video games. Derek was grumbling about the fact that he was way behind in his work out routine to get in shape for his next movie. “Like, ten thousand crunches behind,” he said grumpily, as they pulled into the driveway. A few pictures were snapped, but they ignored the shouting of the photographers and went inside.

Everything had been cleaned up. Derek’s nose wrinkled a little at the strong scent of the cleaning agents, but Stiles figured it had to be preferable to smelling Kate. He immediately went into the little gym they had set up and disappeared for two hours while Stiles ordered some groceries to be delivered so he wouldn’t have to leave the house again.

The next morning, Stiles’ phone rang with another call from Detective Parrish, who said that rather than just giving them an update over the phone, he wanted to know if he could stop by. “That doesn’t sound good,” Derek said, frowning faintly.

“Yeah, I don’t know what’s up,” Stiles said, although he had a squirming feeling in his stomach that told him that maybe he did.

Parrish arrived about twenty minutes later, so at least they didn’t have to wait long. Stiles got him some coffee and then tried to fade into the background as Parrish sat down across from Derek. “So as you know, we’ve been looking into not just Kate’s break-in the other night, but also other incidents where she might have targeted you,” Parrish said, and Derek nodded. “We’ve found some evidence that suggests she might have been responsible for the fire that killed your family.”

Derek’s back went stiff. It took him a moment to be able to speak. “I . . . didn’t know you were going to go that far back.”

“It seemed like there could be some unanswered questions about it,” Parrish said. “It’s unusual for werewolves to die in house fires. We wanted to be thorough.”

Seeing that Derek didn’t know what to say, Stiles cleared his throat and said, “What have you found?”

“Our main evidence right now is financial,” Parrish said. “There were two unusual wire transfers in Kate’s records. One of them was about a week before the fire, which I think might have been to purchase some sort of device to cause the fire’s ignition. The second was the day after the fire and we’ve already traced it to the arson inspector who declared the fire an accident, so that’s obviously a bribe. We’re trying to track down the first wire transfer and see where it went, but it was just a numbered account so it might be impossible to figure that out. Since the arson investigator most likely didn’t actually do any investigating, I’d like to take all the files from back then - any pictures taken, tests done, et cetera - and have them re-reviewed. But I didn’t want to do that without talking to you first.”

Derek was still for so long that Stiles started to worry that he was going to say no. Finally, he said, “Just - do whatever you need to do. I don’t - want to hear any details.” He pushed his chair back, the wood scraped against the tile floor, and went out the sliding glass door in the back.

Stiles winced. “Oh, God. Okay. This is gonna suck. I’d better go after him, so . . .”

“I’ll call you as soon as I know more,” Parrish said, standing up and heading for the front door. Stiles showed him out and then locked the door after him before going out back. Derek was nowhere to be seen, but Stiles hadn’t figured he was going to stay there. It would have been easy for him to hop the property’s back fence, and from there, there was a little trail that lead down to the beach.

Stiles had to circle around to get out the side gate, and then it was a brisk ten minute walk to get to the beach itself. He found Derek sitting there with his knees drawn up to his chest, staring out at the ocean. He sat down in the sand beside him but didn’t say anything for a long minute. When Derek didn’t either, Stiles said, “You wanna talk?”

“Not really,” Derek said, so Stiles nodded and scooted a little closer so they were touching. Nearly another five minutes went by before Derek finally said, “When we got the arson investigator’s report and he said it was an accident . . . Laura and Cora both got really upset. They didn’t see how it could have been. They wanted to, to hire a private investigator or get a lawyer to make the police keep looking into it, but they would have needed me to pay for it . . . and I wouldn’t. Because I knew that if it wasn’t an accident, it was my fault. It was bad enough feeling like it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t gotten them the house. I couldn’t have dealt with it being because of Kate.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Derek,” Stiles said quietly.

Derek didn’t respond to that. “Cora didn’t talk to me for almost a year, she was so upset. Laura, I think . . . she knew why I wouldn’t pay for it, and she let it go. I think she might have started saving up to pay for it herself. But then as time went by . . . I guess maybe it got easier for her to accept that it had been an accident. I don’t know. Now they’re both gonna be pissed at me again.”

“Maybe a little,” Stiles said, “but I think they’ll understand. And, uh . . . in the spirit of full honesty . . . I might be the one who told Parrish that they should go back that far. And look at the fire.”

Derek gave him a sharp look. But then he sighed. “It didn’t occur to you that I might just . . . not want to know?”

“Uh, no,” Stiles said. “Honestly. I have never in my life not wanted to know something.”

“Even if it meant something terrible happened entirely because of you?”

“It _wasn’t_ because of you, Derek,” Stiles said. “It was because of Kate – ”

“Yeah, and she did it because of me. Because she was pissed off that I got away from her but still had a successful career afterwards.”

“So what, then?” Stiles said. “You should have stayed with her? Let her keep abusing you? Do you think that’s what your parents would have wanted?”

“I’m pretty sure they didn’t want to be dead,” Derek shot back.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s true,” Stiles said. “But it’s not like you knew what Kate would do. Hell, it’s not even like you told her off or went public. You just happened to get a job on a different show. So she didn’t like that. And she didn’t like you becoming successful while her career went into a slump. None of that changes the fact that this wasn’t your fault. You didn’t _know_ , Derek. You had no way of knowing how evil she really was. You couldn’t have prevented what she did. And you’re not responsible for things she did to hurt you.”

Derek sat with his eyes closed for a long minute before he finally said, “Yeah. I guess you’re right about that.”

Stiles reached out and rubbed his hand up and down Derek’s spine. “Come on. Let’s go home, okay? We’ll deal with this one day a time.”

“Okay.” Derek leaned against him for a moment. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go home.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everybody! I hope you've enjoyed it! <3

 

As they were walking back to the house, Derek reached out and curled his hand around Stiles’ arm before hesitantly asking, “Could you maybe do something for me?”

“Sure,” Stiles said, somehow managing not to say ‘I would do anything for you, especially right now’.

“Could you . . . call Laura? I know you don’t know her very well, but the idea of telling her that she was right all along, that we could have done this a long time ago . . . just thinking about it makes me feel sick.”

“Of course.” Stiles moved his hand up and caressed the back of Derek’s neck. “I won’t lie and say she definitely won’t be mad, but I think she’ll forgive you. You said yourself, she understood why you were doing it. I know that she loves you. But of course I’ll talk to her for you. Do you want to do that today or tomorrow? You can have tonight off if you want.”

“I’ll just worry about it all night if we don’t do it today.”

“Okay. Come on.”

They went back inside and Stiles got on the phone. It was a little awkward, but he figured that was probably a fair price, given that he had gotten this ball rolling. He opened with, “Hey, it’s Stiles, and don’t panic, Derek is fine,” before giving Laura a brief outline of what Parrish had said. She listened mostly in silence, only asking a few questions to clarify things.

Once he had gotten through all that, she said, “So why are you calling me and not Derek?”

Stiles glanced over at Derek, who was pacing around the kitchen, in earshot but not interfering. He doesn’t bother to lie. “Derek’s afraid you’re going to be pissed, since he shut you down back when you wanted to look into it.”

“Oh.” Laura’s voice softened. “Well, I’m not mad, so put him on.”

“Okay.” Knowing that Derek could hear Laura over the phone, Stiles handed the phone over without commentary.

“Hey,” Derek said quietly. It was Stiles’ turn to pace, wishing that he had werewolf hearing and didn’t have to wait to find out what Laura was saying. Derek was quiet for a long minute, and then, surprisingly, a smile twitched at his lips. “Yeah, I guess so. Okay. Thanks, Laura . . . okay, I’ll see you then. I love you, too.”

He hung up and handed the phone back to Stiles, who gave him an inquisitive look but managed not to ask exactly what she said, instead saying, “Is she coming up?”

“Yeah, she’s gonna drive up on Friday after work.” That little smile twitched at Derek’s mouth again. “Don’t you want to know what she said?”

Stiles groaned. “Of _course_ I want to know, I’m trying to be good, stop taunting me.”

“Laura said that even though she wasn’t thrilled that it took so long for Kate to face justice, she _was_ kind of happy because it resulted in something good. Because I had told Laura that the first time I wanted to kiss you was after you told Kate off at the first premiere. Honestly, I don’t know if I can say that made me fall in love with you, but . . . it made me feel like you were an actual friend, not just a coworker that I had to keep at arm’s length. I don’t know exactly what would have happened if Kate hadn’t done that, but . . . Laura’s happy for it, so I guess I can try to be happy, too.”

Stiles leaned in and wrapped his arm around Derek’s waist, pressing a kiss against his jaw. “I’m happy we’re together. Are you?”

“Yeah.” Derek’s chin dipped and he looked up at Stiles with that shy smile. “Yeah, I am.”

Stiles had never seen a man so obviously wanting to be kissed. He was happy to oblige.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

It was about three weeks before the premier of the third movie in the Haven trilogy when Deucalion called and asked them to come down to his offices at the studio to talk about the press and the premiere itself. Stiles grumbled because leaving the house meant needing to put on clothes, but did it anyway. A few of the other actors were there, along with the two screenwriters, and they chatted briefly about the time and the place and who was going to be there.

“Ah, Derek, Stiles, will you stay behind for a minute?” Deucalion said, as the rest of the cast was leaving. “I have some news for you.”

Derek’s back stiffened, and he and Stiles shared a glance. The others said their goodbyes and filed out, the last one closing the door behind her.

“So,” Deucalion said, rubbing his hands together. “We finally heard back from the temple and, ah, we have half of an answer.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes. “Which half?” he asked, and Derek gave a quiet snort.

“Well, what the monk said was that the pain and fatigue you feel upon separation is actually not because the binding spell is exacting some sort of penalty,” Deucalion replied, and both Stiles and Derek blinked at him in some surprise. “It’s actually because the spell was never completed. It requires, er . . . consummation.”

Derek opened his mouth, seemed to think better of saying anything, and closed it.

Stiles had no such qualms. “Wait, so, okay, there’s a lot to unpack here. First of all, you’re saying that we _cockblocked_ the spell, and the symptoms we had were just, what, magical blue balls?”

“That’s a somewhat more colorful description than the words the monk used,” Deucalion said, “but essentially, yes.”

“And when you say ‘consummation’, you’re talking about sex, right?” Stiles continued. “Now isn’t the time to be proper and talk around the issue. You’re saying that the spell requires Derek and I to have sex, and that once we do that, we would be free of any ill effects from separation?”

“In theory,” Deucalion said. “He did seem very sure of himself when we described the situation.”

“Would we have to have sex seventeen times?” Stiles asked, wanting to be clear. “Because we did the spell seventeen times?”

“Ah, that’s . . . yes. Yes, you would.” Deucalion cleared his throat. “It’s a rather . . . unfortunate situation. I certainly can’t tell you what decision you should make, and if you would like me to continue to seek a solution, I will, but I don’t know when or if we’ll – ”

“What? Oh, no,” Stiles said, and felt his cheeks flush. “We, uh. Kinda. We’re already all set, then.”

“I beg your par – oh.” Deucalion look startled, then amused. “I see. All right, then. I suggest you two spend a few days apart and see if your symptoms return. Hopefully, they won’t. And now if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to leave before I find out anything else I didn’t need to know.”

“Hey, this is all your fault, you know!” Stiles shouted at his retreating back.

Derek gave another soft snort as the door swung shut behind him. He turned to look at Stiles and put his hands on Stiles’ shoulders. “I love you,” he said, “and I don’t regret any of this, and what I’m about to say does not in any way mean I’m breaking up with you or don’t want to be with you. I am getting on a plane, renting a cabin in the woods, and I do not want to speak to anyone for a week.”

Stiles laughed so hard that he nearly cried.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Spell or no spell, consummation or no consummation, Stiles didn’t love the idea of spending a week without Derek. He knew that Derek needed some time to himself, but he was bored and lonely by the time six hours had passed. He called Lydia and pestered her, called his dad and pestered him.

That night, surprising him, he got a text message from Derek that read, ‘I already miss you. What is that about.’

Stiles chuckled to himself and resisted the urge to flail in glee. ‘I’m irresistible and you know it.’

‘Whatever you say,’ Derek replied.

Stiles kept himself busy the next day reading scripts, watching television, and amusing himself with the ongoing coverage of the Argents. Gerard had threatened a lawsuit for harassment so many times that Stiles had tweeted ‘I dare you’ before anybody could stop him. Lydia had changed his Twitter password on him and wouldn’t give it back, but instead of taking the offending Tweet down, she had written a thread summarizing all the crimes Kate was accused of, taking down her laughable ‘the bomb just happened to be there’ defense, outlining the definition of harassment and why charging someone with crimes didn’t fit the criteria, and ending with, ‘So by all means, Mr. Argent, waste the court’s time with your ridiculous lawsuit.’

He read the whole thing out loud to Derek when Derek called that night, which was kind of amazing because Derek had actually never called him before. He was definitely the sort of person who preferred texting, but on this particular day, he admitted, “I missed hearing your voice,” and then followed up with, “Seriously how does one person talk so much.”

They stayed on the phone about an hour, fifty-five minutes of which were Stiles talking to Derek’s five. He hung up hoarse and tired and more in love than ever.

Derek texted the next morning to ask, ‘How are you feeling?’

‘A-okay,’ Stiles replied.

‘You were feeling it by this point last time, weren’t you?’

‘Yeah, definitely,’ Stiles said, and then because he couldn’t not, added an ‘are you feeling it now, Mr. Krabs’ meme.

Ten minutes later, Derek texted, ‘Don’t make me divorce you seventeen times.’

Derek came home on the evening of the fifth day. Stiles greeted him with an enthusiastic kiss and said, “That was a short week.”

“You’ve ruined me,” Derek agreed, returning the kiss for several long moments.

When Derek pulled away, Stiles said, “You know, I was thinking about what you said earlier, about divorcing me seventeen times.”

“Were you now,” Derek said, pressing kisses into Stiles’ neck, obviously not particularly interested in having a conversation.

“Mm hm.” Stiles curled his fingers around the back of Derek’s neck, trying to focus. “Just. Seventeen. It’s not a great number. Not divisible by anything. Odd by definition. Eighteen, though . . . eighteen is an awesome number. It’s divisible by two, three, six, _and_ nine. You can’t say that about a lot of numbers.”

“You are so weird,” Derek told him, not sounding at all annoyed about this, and kissed him again.

Since Derek didn’t seem to see what he was getting at, Stiles enjoyed the kiss for several long moments before forcing himself to pull away. “I wanna marry you again. With rings and a cake and stuff. I wanna have a wedding that’s in English instead of ancient Sumerian.”

Derek’s eyes widened slightly. “Really?”

“Yes, really, you enormous nerd,” Stiles said. “Why is this a shock to you? We’re already married and accepted months ago that we weren’t going to get the spell reversed so we would stay that way. We’ve literally talked about getting a summer home in Iceland. There is nothing about this which should surprise you.”

“I just . . .” Derek’s cheeks flushed pink. “I never really thought about having a real wedding, I guess. Maybe I thought . . . getting married by accident was the best thing that could happen. Because of the curse. When good things happened to me, they were always followed by awful things. Having a wedding would just be begging the world for trouble.”

Stiles reached out and cupped Derek’s face in his hands. “You aren’t cursed, Derek. You never _have_ been. An evil person did terrible things to you. But we took care of that, and she’s never going to hurt you again. So start thinking about having a real wedding, babe, because if you let _me_ plan it, we’ll be serving fried chicken and our first dance will be My Heart Will Go On.”

Derek cracked up. “I would divorce you on the spot.”

“And I would deserve it,” Stiles replied. “Let’s get married again.”

“Eighteen sounds like a great number,” Derek said, and kissed him until they were both breathless.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The premiere of the third movie was, hands down, one of the most fantastic experiences of Stiles’ life. He could _feel_ the tension in the audience as Derek’s character went about his daily business in Haven. Their first kiss was greeted with a wave of applause and cheers. On the way home, Stiles pulled up Twitter and went to the movie’s hashtag. “Well, that’s disappointing,” he lied, trying not to start laughing.

“What is?” Derek asked, giving him a sideways look.

“I was expecting thoughtful, nuanced commentary, but instead Twitter is basically just fifty pages of screaming.”

Derek gave a snort. “Good screaming, I hope.”

“Oh, yeah. Awesome screaming.”

They went back to the house and made love and then slept in the next morning. They couldn’t stay in bed all day, much to Stiles’ annoyance, because they had an interview. Nearly a year after Deucalion had originally tried to arrange it, they were giving the exclusive scoop to his friend Marin, who worked at GQ.

“So,” Marin said, smiling as they sat down, “I’m sure you can imagine that the third movie has created quite a commotion.”

“It’s been awesome,” Stiles said with a huge grin. Derek snorted but nodded agreement.

“Have you been paying attention to the backlash?”

“I mean, we’re aware it exists,” Derek said, rolling his eyes. “But we haven’t gone looking for articles to read about it. Frankly, neither of us care about what the red pill crowd has to say about our movie.”

“I went through the Twitter tag,” Stiles said, “but mainly just to get an idea of how small a percentage of people were pissed off about it.”

“What was your impression?” Marin asked.

“That it was a hilariously small percentage,” Stiles said, and Derek gave another snort.

They chatted about the movie for another minute and then Marin said, “So in more serious news. Let’s talk about Kate Argent.”

Derek nodded, although Stiles could feel his shoulders tensing up. He reached out and took Derek’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “There’s a lot that I’m not legally allowed to talk about right now,” Derek said. “Mostly what I can say is that the police have found solid evidence that she was behind the fire that killed my parents and my two siblings, as well as several incidents from earlier this year where she attempted to hurt one or both of us.”

“Like your accident on the Star Wars set, am I correct, Stiles?”

“Yeah. Well, again, because of legal bullshit, I’m not allowed to say anything concrete,” Stiles said. “All I can say is that she’s being charged with assault because of that incident. Although,” he added brightly, “Gerard Argent has stopped threatening to sue us for slander because of what we said about her breaking into the house and planting a bomb in our car, so that’s probably a good sign.”

“Am I right in assuming that you’re expecting a prolonged court case?” Marin asked.

Derek wrinkled his nose slightly and said, “Unfortunately, yes.”

“There actually might be more than one trial,” Stiles added, “since Kate is allegedly responsible for multiple incidents. Each one will probably be tried separately, unless she accepts some sort of plea deal, which is unlikely.”

“If you could say something to her now, what would it be?”

Derek glanced at Stiles, then said, “Nothing. I have nothing to say to her. I don’t want to ever see or speak to her again. I know I won’t get that wish, because of the trial, but the sooner I can get all traces of her out of my life, the happier I’ll be.”

“What about you, Stiles?”

“I want to tell her that she’s getting nominated for a Razzie for her role in Top Gun,” Stiles said, and Derek huffed out a quiet laugh.

Marin laughed as well. “So what’s next for you two? Derek, I know that you’ve been filming Idris Elba’s new movie. What about you, Stiles? Any juicy parts on your radar?”

“I’ve actually just started looking around for my next role,” Stiles said. “I was taking a little vacation while Derek was filming. I’ve been reading a lot of scripts, though. I really want to do a heist movie. Those are the most amazing movies. Or a suspense thriller, or maybe a courtroom drama or really just anything where I could meet Nicolas Cage because I really want to meet Nicolas Cage.”

“How about personally? You two have been dating for over a year now. Any plans to tie the knot?”

Stiles glanced at Derek, then grinned. “Funny story . . .”

An hour later, they interview was over. Derek was shaking his head slightly. “You had way too much fun with that.”

“We’re going to break the internet, Derek,” Stiles predicted. “The entire fucking internet.”

Derek gave a snort of laughter, then leaned over to press a kiss into Stiles’ temple. “Worth it.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


End file.
